VECTORS

CHARLES SHEFFIELD

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 1979 by Charles Sheffield

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

eISBN: 978-1-61824-064-4

"What Song the Sirens Sang" copyright ©1977 by UPD Publishing Corporation.

"Fixed Price War" copyright ©1978 by Conde Nast Publications Inc.

"Marconi, Mattin, Maxwell" copyright ©1977 by UPD Publishing Corporation.

"Power Failure" copyright © 1978 by Ultimate Publishing Co.

"Killing Vector" copyright © 1978 by Charles Sheffield.

"Dinsdale Dissents" copyright © 1977 by UPD Publishing Corporation.

"We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident" copyright©1977 by Ultimate Publishing Co.

"Skystalk" copyright © 1979 by Charter Communications Inc.

"How to Build a Beanstalk" copyright © 1979 by Charter Communications Inc.

"Transition Team" copyright © 1978 by Charter Communications Inc.

"Bounded in a Nutshell" copyright © 1978 by Conde Nast Publications Inc.

"The Long Chance" copyright ©1977 by UPD Publishing Corporation.

"The Treasure of Odirex" copyright ©1978 by Ultimate Publishing Co.

"The Dalmatian of Faust" copyright ©1978 by UPD Publishing Corporation.

All stories reprinted by arrangement with the author.

For Ann and Kit:

iudices crudeles.

INTRODUCTION

"If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?"

The words on the cover have promised great things, enough to persuade you to go this far and look inside. Now you need a reason to take the next step and buy the book.

The most common way of luring you on to the next step is an introduction—written by somebody well-known, ten pages long, full of superlatives and promising you the treat of a lifetime.

I think that approach is a sham. I've found out from my own experience that such an introduction is often the only readable part of the book, and the bigger the build-up, the worse the let-down. A story, or a set of stories, is like a blind date. Reading is romance, and no matter how much I tell you how wonderful it will be, those words don't mean a thing until you've proved it for yourself by direct experience.

No inflated introduction, then. Real stories don't need one, and bad stories (which to me mean dull stories) can't be saved by one.

I can offer only one alternative. Read the stories and form your own view of them. After that, I'll tell you what I was trying to do, what that blind date meant to me. You can judge if I succeeded or failed.

Here's to a fine romance.

CHARLES SHEFFIELD.

June 18th 1979.

WHAT SONG THE SIRENS SANG

My death won't bring out the banner headlines. That's fine with me. I suppose by rights I should be up there with Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, Leon Monde and What's-his-name Bremer. I'll settle for being the one that got away. Saved civilization, too—as I see civilization—but that won't last too long. Just until I'm gone.

Do not go gentle into that good night. I hear you, Dylan, and I'll keep up the struggle. But I've ridden ten thousand days and nights from James Webster's death, I'm old and tired, and no man lives forever. It's the right time for this.

Why am I recording here? Maybe I can't bear to see a piece of history going wrong into the record books. And maybe I want to warn my spiritual heirs to be ready when it happens again.

I came to cover the Webster campaign in '80 by accident. Got in late, when Jim Dotter had his first stroke. It's been a short twenty years since Jim went. I still remember the shock of the news, the rush to get ready and out of the office and onto the plane. It sounds like boasting when I say that I was overkill for that local primary but I'm past the age for modesty—and I don't expect I'll have to defend this to anybody.

There was no time for a briefing from the Channel before I was on my way, but after thirty years I could manage well without it. During the flight I read releases of Webster's speeches and looked at the local coverage reports of his meetings. The combination didn't make much sense. Trite words, banal sentiments—and a tremendous response from the crowds. Something was out of tune. Thin gruel in the speeches, rich reactions from the audiences.

I picked up the campaign trail in Atlanta. Peach blossom time, with the heat cracking eighty the afternoon I flew in. You could see the Southern beauties opening in the sun like buds. Riding in from the airport I could feel a pressure in the air like the undercurrent of a thunderstorm. Electricity, building up and raising the hair on the back of my neck—and all on a cloudless March afternoon. I'd felt it only twice before, and never as strongly. People fever. Alamogordo, on the day of the first test of the first bomb. And Washington, D.C. the afternoon of Nixon's resignation. Something was taking hold of Atlanta and winding it up like the spring on an old-fashioned watch.

There's not a gift the world can give like that it takes away. I won't argue the point, but seniority has its advantages. The younger men were eager to tell me what had happened before I had arrived. A movement for Webster, building to great peaks every night at his open-air rallies. Orgasms of emotional response that left the audiences drained but uplifted. That, from experienced newsmen. Whatever it was that the vintners buy, James Webster was selling it in Atlanta.

As you may know from my writing, human interest isn't my main line. For political analysis, I need facts. Over bourbon and branch I got a fair sprinkling of them from a young local reporter. Webster had sprung up from nowhere, overnight. No previous track record in politics, no big backers pushing him along as a puppet—but somehow he had persuaded the local power groups that he could take this primary.

Support staff? Almost none. Lighting up a big cigar (building an image—how well I remembered it. Thirty years earlier I was struggling to keep a pipe alight) the youngster went on. Webster made all the plans for his meetings himself, wrote his own speeches to the last comma, set the exact timing for everything. Brief press conferences, and no remarks off the record.

"Ever try for an interview with him?" I asked.

"Oh, sure. No good though—a few words with him on the telephone were as far as I got," he said. Not too surprising—a local and an unknown began with a couple of strikes against him.

How about family and friends? A bit more meat there. From a rich family near Athens, Georgia, but James Webster was almost the end of the line. One great aunt still living up north of Athens on the family estate. Easy enough to get to see her, but hard to understand what she said when you did. Yes, he'd done that, was sure I could do it too.

I brightened a bit. Old ladies are one of my strong points. Either I just like them, or they relish my polite approach. Miss Amelia Webster would be on my visiting list.

Before we could get to Webster's early life it was time to cover the evening rally. My young friend put out his cigar with considerable relief, and we left.

Outside, there was still that feeling of excitement in the air. The swarms of people converging on the great field where Webster held his rallies were chattering to each other as though a real treat was in store for them. At a political rally? There may be duller events in the world, and the political pros do get a big kick from them—but they are caviar to the general public.

I took up my position in the crowd, about a third of the way back from the stage. Like the psychologist at the burlesque show, I got part of my moneysworth looking at the reactions of the audience.

It began at eight, with no introductory speakers or warm-ups. First, a low pleasant music from the big speakers hung around the field. Familiar, vaguely so, but I couldn't place it. At eight-five, Webster came onto the floodlit stage with its black curtains and white canopy. I began to make notes.

Short, tendency to pudginess, receding dark hair, a pleasant plump face. No sign of the great vitality or exceptional good looks that the charismatic (dreadful word) leaders so often enjoy. He stepped forward to the battery of microphones and began to speak. To my surprise the soft music continued, blending with his words.

Like most reporters, I have a very good memory for words. We need it. It's partly training, partly natural talent. I've taught myself to supplement memory, as a matter of course, with notes made on the fly during speeches. With their aid I can get an almost verbatim reconstruction.

After Webster's speech I realized that I had encountered a unique phenomenon. For the first time in twenty years, I had forgotten to take any notes.

Forgotten? That's the wrong word. My notes of his speech read—in total—"slightly nasal voice. Odd variations in pitch and intonation." That's it, the whole thing. I had stopped writing because listening had become so important, I didn't want to risk missing a word.

Webster was amazing. When he talked about the past, I felt as though I could see and hear the fathers of the country, working to create and protect my heritage. When he spoke of the future, I felt my duties, my responsibility, my part in building a brave new world for our children. I felt these, physically, like a fever in my blood. As Webster directed I laughed, I dreamed, I raged, I cried, I planned. At last he ceased and raised his arms above his head. After a long hushed pause the first tentative applause built rapidly and became thunderous and prolonged.

Back in my hotel room at midnight I tried to draft an article to send north. It wouldn't come. How do you put on paper the most stirring event of your life? After a while I stopped trying and leaned back in my chair. A new but very old thought was tugging at the edge of my attention. I'm just old enough to remember the newsreels of the goose-stepping figures and the crashing shouts of'Sieg Heil.' There is something very frightening about a crowd with a single mind—a mob, that's still the best word for it. If James Webster had told us to go and pull down City Hall, what would we have done? I could guess.

I didn't sleep well.

* * *

Next morning I called Webster's campaign office and asked for an interview. After a surprisingly short run-around from a secretary, he came on the telephone himself. Was I the Bill Forrest of T.V. and newspaper fame? Yes, I was. (Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. I never failed to get a thrill from being recognized, even by crooks and villains.) Again, the seniority was paying off. Webster would be very happy to see me at his office at two o'clock.

Close-up, I confirmed last night's impression. Physically unimpressive, with a distant look in his eyes. I began the interview conventionally and asked about the election.

If you had asked me about Webster's voice after last night's speech I would have ignored my first scribbled note and told you that it was compelling and persuasive. Today it was nothing. Monotonic, soft. He wouldn't look me in the eye. Yes, this was his first campaign. No, he would refuse a television interview now, he was not quite—hesitation—prepared for it. Perhaps in a month or so. Certainly, he was completely confident of a win here. Future plans? Wait and see, but this was only a beginning.

After three quarters of an hour I gave up and left. James Webster was sharp and confident all right but he came across to me as a cold fish, a man you wouldn't trust with a dime or your daughter. I knew I couldn't send back an interview that said that, without rhyme or reason, I disliked and distrusted the man. But I did, strongly.

What had happened to the man who had spoken last night? No sign of him today. One phrase came back again. Not prepared for a television interview yet. Why had he agreed to an interview with me? Well, I could guess at that. Even a villain—and that's how I was thinking of Webster now, with no evidence to support me—likes to go on ego-building trips.

I'd picked up a few useful things during the interview. First and foremost, James Webster thought that James Webster was wonderful. I've sensed that from many—from most—politicians, but here it came across as a contempt for anything that was not James Webster. Long-time politicians may feel that way, some of them, but they hide it a whole lot better. Second, the campaign really was one hundred percent his own. No one else was more than a minor hanger-on, dispensed with if and when Webster chose to do it.

I had a day of useless churning and frustration, until I finally rented a car and drove north for Athens, and Miss Amelia Webster. According to James Webster she was his only surviving relative. I wanted to check his version of his early career with her recollections. According to him it had been brilliance too much for his teachers to understand, until he had become impatient with them and left the stupid school system forever.

I moved to another universe. At eighty-five, the present must seem rather like a dream world. The real world, the world that matters, is mostly the past. Amelia Webster was sitting outside on a stone patio, looking out over a landscaped formal garden from a brightly colored reclining chair. I was led to her through the house and left to stand a few minutes inside while her companion went to her and told her about my arrival.

The fading photographs on the side tables showed a woman in her twenties and thirties, black-haired and vivacious. No photographs after that. Amelia Webster, wisely, had frozen her recorded image at thirty-five.

The bone structure and the alert dark eyes were still there, but everything else had changed beyond recognition. Thomas Hardy said it exactly. 'They must forget, forget! They cannot know what once they were, or memory would transfigure them and show them always fair.'

On that warm patio, sustained by endless cups of China tea from pale blue cups, we drifted for three hours, back and forth over eighty years. I didn't hurry. Now and again we circled back to 'young James,' then away again to the Christmas Ball through the deep snow, the beloved killed in the Great War, to the first automobile ride. By five o'clock I knew the real Amelia Webster, passionate and sparkling, hidden inside the accidental husk of old age. And I had built a clear and disturbing picture of James Webster.

'Bad blood.' That was the ominous key phrase that Amelia had used. The other words? Glacially intelligent. Selfish. Vain. Those are mine, not Amelia's, but her longer descriptions added to produce the unpleasant summary. After high school James Webster had attended college for two years, then quit suddenly and returned to the family estate. There was a faint impression of something about his departure that would not be mentioned to anyone outside the family. I checked it later at the college and found well-disguised traces of a tragedy involving the death of a mentally retarded girl.

All this confirmed my own instinctive reaction. The central discovery from my meeting with Amelia was more tangible. James Webster maintained a study and complete recording studio in one wing of the house. For the past year, he had spent all his time there until he began his campaign.

That night I drove back to Atlanta and again attended Webster's rally. This time, I was determined to remain aloof and analyze his speech in objective terms. Can you believe me when I tell you I failed totally? The setting was just as before, the simple outdoor meeting place, the soft music before he appeared. I made my notes about the audience, the lighting and the expectant tension in the air. Then Webster began to speak and I was gone again.

I returned to my senses and control of my own body more than an hour later. I had been carried to great heights, shown the beauties of the world, dipped far into the future, offered happiness beyond belief—if I would help James Webster in his chosen works.

Another sleepless night followed. Smoking and drinking like a fool, until the back of my throat was raw and my head spun when I lay back. But by morning I knew what I wanted to do. I made another appointment with Amelia Webster and drove again to the big house with its long oak-shaded drive. The weather had broken and it was twenty degrees cooler, so today we remained inside. Lunch was served in a dining room big enough for thirty people. Amelia made sure that I was served enough for three meals but limited herself to soup, cheese and wine. Again, we talked our way here and there through the century, while I tried to refuse a succession of well-prepared dishes.

With the coffee, Amelia Webster showed me what a mistake it would have been to underrate the mind in the fragile body.

"Now, Mr. Forrest, that was very enjoyable. I don't have too many interesting guests these days, you know. But why don't you tell me now what you came for." She smiled. "I'm well aware that men no longer court me for myself alone. What do you want?"

She was half-wrong, in my case, but half-right too. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled back at her.

"Miss Amelia, I suspect that you know already."

"I think I do. It's James' studio, isn't it? You were very polite yesterday but I could see you almost sniffing the air when I mentioned it. You see, I've had the feeling for a long time that James has been up to something—and my instincts tell me that it's not something that I'll feel proud of."

She rose with difficulty from her chair and went slowly over to a large teak sideboard.

"I don't know why I should trust you this way, but that's always a mystery. Here are the keys to the West Wing. The study and studio are on the second floor. James will not be back to the house until tomorrow evening. I ask one thing only, Mr. Forrest. Tell me nothing of what you find. Peace of mind is something I cherish these days."

Amelia Webster. A remarkable woman. We missed each other by about thirty-five years, and I've regretted it ever since. Perhaps the next time around.

It was three o'clock when I took the keys from her and left the room. It was close to midnight when I climbed back into my rented car and began to drive back to Atlanta.

* * *

That was on March 19, 1980. If you look at the newspapers for that year, you will find that James Webster was murdered on the evening of March 28th. Shot by an unknown assassin in the middle of an evening political rally. The shot was fired from a considerable distance using a high-powered rifle and a telescopic sight.

No, I must correct that. The telescopic sight wasn't in any of the news reports—they never found the rifle.

I shot James Webster. I didn't regret it then, and although the idea of murder for political ends appalls me, I have never regretted it since. In the eyes of the world, I might have been able to justify James Webster's murder for good political reasons.

But seen through those same eyes, I committed the greatest treason. I did the right deed for the wrong reason.

Let me come now to the heart of it.

It all boils down to this: what was it I found in the Webster house? Well, what had I been expecting? It was hard to put a name to it, but mass hypnotism comes close. A 'hypnotic generator,' maybe, that would allow one man to mesmerize a whole crowd. That was what was floating around in my mind.

I found worse than that. First was Webster's diary. Not for the past; for the future. Meticulously noted, day by day and meeting by meeting, the path to the Presidency of the United States.

Five primaries, the convention, the television speeches, the pre-election addresses.

Alone, that would have been nothing. Men have dreamed of power, and it is certain that many have made detailed plans to get it, but failed along the way. Webster would not have failed. What I found in his studio proved that.

It took a while for me to put the pieces together. First there was the general theory. Three heavy black loose-leaf binders, full of mathematics and right over my head. Next to them I found a whole series of Webster 'speeches.' Each had a title and a date, running through the end of 1980. Inside the folder for each speech it looked like the score for a complicated opera, plus lots of added notation that I couldn't follow.

The words—I recognized some of them, from Webster's speeches in Atlanta—had their own diacritical and pitch marks, above and below them. The music that went with them was precisely annotated as to volume, crescendi, diminuendi and instrumentation.

On a desk in the corner I found another set of books. Famous speeches by Demosthenes, Cicero, William Jennings Bryan, Adolf Hitler and others. Each had numerous changes, added by Webster, plus again his strange 'orchestration' and added symbols. I finally realized that these were test pieces of Webster's theory and techniques.

The whole studio was packed with sophisticated recording equipment. Monitors for recording and varying pitch and intonation. Complex tape decks to permit multiple-track recordings, dubbing and splicing. Oscilloscopes to permit the display of wave forms, filters for signal processing, and signal synthesizers. I consider I know a fair amount about recording techniques but I was out of my depth. Webster had a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment in that single room.

I might never have fathomed the mystery without Webster's direct assistance. The key was in a thin blue book, over on the low table by the bricked-up fireplace of the studio. James Webster had kept a private log and diary for all his work.

Perhaps everybody needs someone to talk to—a Boswell, a Horatio, a wife or a confessor. James Webster had followed Samuel Pepys and used a private diary.

From it I at last understood the true scope of his work, his ego and his ambition.

James Webster, with his failings, was a genius. He had developed the basic theory of human communication, the underlying eternal rules that govern human action and reaction. From that theoretical beginning, he had gone on to find the precise combinations of sounds that would stimulate a particular emotional response. It was an exact science. The calculations were long and complex and exact results hard to achieve, but Webster had developed an 'approximation theory' that used combinations of English words and musical sounds to approximate the mathematically optimal signals.

His 'speeches' were approximations of this type. As he said in his diary, "all the efforts of the great orators through history have been crude and intuitive attempts to do empirically and unreliably what I can now do with absolute assurance."

A great man could have found noble uses for his discoveries. Webster had no such objective. The pursuit of personal power, above and beyond any leader in history, was his ambition.

Did I mention at the beginning that this is a confession? It is. Why didn't I reveal Webster's plans to the world and let society deal with him? Wouldn't I have been regarded as a hero, the man who saved the country (and the world) from an absolute dictatorship? Aye, there's the rub.

I told you I am appalled at the very idea of killing for political reasons. This is the simple truth. I shot Webster for different and more selfish reasons.

To those people who have heard of me at all, I am a political writer. I have been one for so long that they cannot imagine me as anything else. But every harlot was a virgin once. Scratch a hack writer, and underneath you often find a poet. That's me. Fifty years ago I decided that I had to earn a living and turned my back on poetry. Only the longing and the love lived on.

When I left the Webster estate that night, so many years ago, I went to my hotel and I thought, long and painfully. I knew that all the great orators of the past had become fumbling amateurs, blindly stumbling towards Webster's exact knowledge.

But I knew more than that, much more. I thought of Keats, Coleridge, Milton, Eliot and Wordsworth—of Shakespeare. Their words, long cherished, flooded my mind. And music. I heard the complex web of the final Ricercare of the 'Musical Offering'— the de profundis opening of the Ring—the whirlwind and lightning finale of Schubert's C Major Symphony. All now to be dismissed, discarded, crude approximations to a single attainable absolute. My world was to become obsolete.

Take your fifty favorite pieces of music, your hundred best-loved poems. Imagine them gone from the world, swept away by a final and terrible progress. Now you know why I killed James Webster, or you will never know.

Afterword.

This was the first story I sold. That makes it awfully hard for me to be objective, but I'll try.

The hero (or villain, depending on your viewpoint) claims to be a poet who was forced to do other things with his working life. I'm not a poet, and I was afraid that would be obvious from my prose. So when I first wrote the story I tried to do it almost wholly in quotations. The result had a certain strange charm. Read aloud, it was like gargling with porridge. I'm sorry now that I threw the first draft away.

When I rewrote it I cut the literary references to a reasonable level—I think there are now fourteen direct quotes in it, including the title. Still too many, probably, but I needed them to bolster my confidence.

As for the plot, I have often wondered how Adolf Hitler, such a funny looking ridiculous figure, could exercise the power he did over the German people. The effects of his oratory went well beyond his words, which were often banal. Did he have some other technique to augment what he said? That led me to James Webster.

One other point for the seekers for hidden significance: I wrote this story in early 1976, before I had heard of Jimmy Carter. The names and the Georgia setting are pure coincidence.

FIXED PRICE WAR

As the sun set, the first line of attackers came silently over the brow of the hill. They were the scouts, shadowy figures moving with no apparent coordination down to and across the river, on to the waist-high savannah scrub on the near side. When the last man was across, the second wave appeared, a line of hover-tanks with chopper cover, advancing at no more than walking pace. The counterattack waited until the tanks had reached the river. Then a bright mesh of ruby pulsed-laser beams lanced out from the nearer hillside, probing for the soft underskirts of the hover-tanks and the chopper rotors. Yellow and red tracers replied. The air became a multicolored confusion of stabbing pencils of light, smoke from burning vegetation and the fitful glare of crippled tanks and choppers.

Suddenly the whole hillside was lit by an intense blue-white fireball, spreading from a point close to the river bank. It grew rapidly, changing color to a greenish-yellow.

Merle Walters gave a grunt of surprise, leaned forward and hit a button on the console in front of him. The display stopped, frozen with the fireball about forty meters across. He swiveled in his chair and pressed the intercom. "Franny, get Alex Burns on the line. I think I've finally caught him."

He waited impatiently as the connection to Redondo Beach was made, looking at his watch as he did so. Eight-thirty, that made it five-thirty in California. Alex would still be around. When the intercom buzzed he reached out his right arm to pick up the phone. The left sleeve was empty, pinned to his dark jacket. As he placed the receiver to his ear, the screen lit up to show a trim, ruddy-faced man in his early forties.

"Alex, I think you've finally goofed." Walters grinned in triumph at the man on the screen. "If I had another arm I'd be rubbing my hands together here. I'm reviewing the simulation you've done for Exhibit Three of our proposal. One of your boys has gone wild and thrown in a tactical nuke. You know that's right out."

"Mr. Walters, I invite your attention to Page 57 of the Work Statement of the Request For Proposal." Burns answered in the careful speech of an Inverness Scot, unchanged after sixteen years in Southern California. "The RFP very clearly states, and I quote: 'Although nuclear weapons may not be employed, clean imploders up to 1,000 metric tons TNT equivalent may be used. No more than three such devices will be available in any single engagement.' The fireball that you are looking at in Exhibit Three is a new Morton Imploder, type four, one hundred and fifty TNT tons equivalent."

Alex Burns's face showed the slightest trace of a smile. Merle Walters looked at the display screen, thumbed rapidly through his copy of the Request For Proposal, and swore. "Alex, you Gaelic bastard, you did that on purpose. Don't deny it. I've known you too long not to recognize your touch there. Tell your lads the simulations are damn good—but I'd like them a lot better if you'd put some faces on the attackers. All I can see is blobs."

Burns nodded gloomily. "I know, Mr. Walters. I feel the same way. But the people at GSA won't say who we're fighting and I can think of at least four possibles. Maybe you can get something for me at the bidders' conference."

"I'll give it a try, Alex—but don't hold your breath waiting for it. I'll be honest with you, that won't be my top priority at this bidders' session. There's something else I have to get an answer on. The Contracts Office have been like a bunch of clams on this one. Jack's trying a little line of his own to get information—we'll tell you tomorrow how it works out."

Burns nodded again. "Goodnight, Mr. Walters. Maybe I could suggest that you should call it a day. You're looking very tired. Trouble with the resumés?"

"As usual. We need two or three good production men, all we can find is a bunch of retired colonels and generals. Keep up the good work on the simulations, Alex, and I'll call you about noon—our time—tomorrow."

Merle Walters broke the connection and leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his hand over the top of his bald, furrowed forehead. Alex was right. He was damn tired. Alex couldn't usually catch him that way. And with just ten days to go before the proposal was due, with all the costing still to be done, he'd better keep something in reserve for next week. He spoke again into the intercom.

"Franny, I'm cutting out. Pull a bunch of those resumés together for me as bedside reading, will you? Remember, I won't be in first thing in the morning. Jack and I will be down at 18th and E Streets, at the Bidders' Conference. I can't be reached there."

He levered himself to his feet and walked to the outer office, limping slightly. He could disguise it if he tried, but it was pointless in front of Franny. She knew him better than he knew himself. She had the resumés all ready for him—probably had them ready two hours ago. Her plump, pretty face was set in what he thought of as her 'take your medicine like a good little boy' expression.

"Mr. Walters, I discussed this earlier with Mr. Tukey." She held out a locator. "If you'd carry this about with you, it would be so much easier for us to get messages to you. Look, this new one only weighs an ounce—and it's only an inch wide, it wouldn't be any trouble."

He looked at it, then peered at Franny from under his thick, grizzled eyebrows—his sternest expression. "Franny, I've told you once and I'll tell you again. I'm not going to wear a damned beeper. It's an invasion of privacy. When you see Jack Tukey tomorrow, you tell him exactly what he can do with that thing. Tell him it's only an inch wide, so he shouldn't have any trouble." His gray eyes twinkled beneath the bushy brows. "Goodnight, Franny, and thanks for another day."

He went slowly out into the chilly November evening. Ten minutes later, Franny locked up and left also. The Washington office of WAWD Corporation was closed for the night.

* * *

The Bidders' Conference was scheduled for 9 AM in the biggest Conference Room of the old Interior building. Merle Walters was there by 8:45, watching the arrivals. About a hundred people. Say two per company. So fifty groups interested in the procurement. Merle knew the real competition like the back of his hand. Three groups, and WAWD. The other forty-six were innocents, flesh-peddlers, or companies looking for subcontract work. When Tolly Suomi of VVV Industries arrived at two minutes to nine, Merle followed him in and sat in the same row. Suomi looked his way and inclined his head. Merle had no doubt that Tolly knew the real score as well as he did.

Biggest Conference Room, so more than a twenty million dollar job. Coffee served, so more than fifty million. Merle read the signs almost subconsciously, the pricing signals that only the pros could read. Then Petzell would be running the Government side, for a job over five hundred million dollars.

Merle was sitting smugly on that train of thought when the senior government man came forward to the podium. Instead of Petzell it was his deputy, Pete Wolff. Merle sat up and took notice. What the hell was going on? He'd been tracking this procurement for a year, sniffing it and sizing it. He'd been pegging it at about a billion two. Surely they couldn't have missed the mark so badly? He leaned forward to catch the opening remarks, ignoring the stab of pain in his left side.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." Wolff looked around at the sea of faces, old friends and old enemies. "I want to begin by running over the procedures we will be following on questions and answers. First, though, I should tell you that I'm deputizing today for Howard Petzell." He looked around with a slight smile. "He is home today with a bad case of the 'flu."

Merle leaned back, then looked across at Suomi. He was sitting there with a half-smile on his face, stroking his gray beard with one finger. Chalk one up to VVV's intelligence service. Suomi had known about Petzell's illness in advance.

Wolff closed the opening preamble with the usual warning about staying away from the technical men in the Government until the award was announced. Well, why not? Anybody who didn't have all his sources lined up well before the Request For Proposal hit the streets was a dead duck anyway.

Wolff came at last to the guts of the meeting. "We will now answer the questions from prospective bidders. All questions have been submitted in writing in advance. All answers will be given in writing to all attendees. Will you please identify yourselves as you read your questions. First question, please."

"Jim Peters, Consultec. How will you be applying the Equal Employment Opportunity Clause in this job?" The speaker was well-known to Merle. From his Baltimore offices, Peters could be relied on to find a few hundred talented mercenaries for any job.

"As far as feasible. We know it's not easy for any of you. We don't expect an exact split, but we do want to see some WASPs in there. We can't accept a bid that's all blacks and Puerto Ricans. And we'd really like to see some minorities up near the top of your team, not just a bunch of retired West Pointers. That answer it?"

Peters shrugged. Wolff and the other government men knew his problem well enough.

"Next."

"Oral Jones, Rockdonnell Industries. It's not clear from the Request For Proposal how much Government Furnished Equipment we should assume. Can you give us any guidance?"

"It's been left open. It's up to you. Use GFE for anything, weapons, food, medical supplies, if you want to. Bid it yourselves if you think you can get it cheaper. We'll be happy to give you our price lists so you can see what we pay."

Merle sniffed. Dumb question. Nobody could undercut Government prices on supplies, unless they were buying stolen goods. GSA insisted on the best prices in town from everybody. Merle waited for the real action to start.

"Warren McVittie, Lockheed. I have a question on types of bid."

Merle noticed that the Lockheed and the Rockdonnell reps were sitting in pairs. Jack Tukey was over on the left-hand side, well away from Merle, where he could keep an eye on Suomi's crack salesman, Vince Menoudakis, and also on the men from Lectron Industries and Lockheed. He and Merle were careful to remain well apart, to get independent views of the meeting, and Tolly Suomi and Vince Menoudakis followed the same logic. Merle also noticed that the Lectron and Lockheed men were not their most senior reps. Suomi's presence confirmed Merle's own feelings—that this meeting was going to be a real ground-breaker. Top men should be there. Score one point against Lectron and Lockheed.

"The bid request is not clear," went on McVittie. "On Page 24 of the RFP, there's a note to say that bidders may choose to quote cost-plus or fixed price. That's a new clause for this kind of procurement. Are you actually inviting Fixed-Price bids for the whole job?"

The action had arrived. Merle Walters leaned forward intently. This was one of the questions he had come to hear an answer to. Wolff looked a little uneasy, and paused before he replied.

"Just what it says. Bid it cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-plus-incentive-fee, or fixed price. It's up to you. I think I should tell you that, other things being equal, fixed price bids will be favored." He stopped, then apparently felt obliged to add another comment. "I know it's new, but this will probably be our policy in the future on this type of project."

Fixed price. A whole new set of parameters to worry about. Merle sat, deep in thought, until he was roused by Jack Tukey's voice.

"Jack Tukey, WAWD Corporation. I'd like to ask about deliverables, especially in view of what you said about a preference for a fixed-price contract. What are the project deliverables, and how will they be evaluated?"

"If you bid fixed price, there's only one real deliverable. The overall tactical position at the end of the contract period must be acceptable in territorial holdings. We realize this gives you problems in bidding, since we can't at this time reveal to you the exact area where the engagement will be fought. However, this deliverable will be developed in detail during the final contract negotiation, when a vendor has been selected."

Nasty. In other words, you're bidding it blind, fellers. And if you won't play the Fixed-price game, you probably lose outright. Some smartie in the Government was being super-tricky. Merle tried to fit it together.

"Vince Menoudakis, VVV Industries." The voice was soft, with a slight trace of a stammer. Merle awakened again from his trance. He always liked to see an artist at work, and Vince was one of the great ones. "Mr. Wolff, the geography makes a big difference to the cost of the action. You know that just as well as we do. Now, wouldn't it save the Government money if the bidders could be told the fighting area? There would be less work for you in negotiation, more precise bids from each of us, and a bigger effort on our part to get the really best strategies for the terrain. Where will the project be located, Mr. Wolff?"

Merle smiled to himself. In five or six sentences, Vince had somehow done his usual stroking job. How did he do it? Wolff was smiling and nodding, responding to some mysterious warmth in the questioner. Menoudakis, if he were available, would really be a catch for WAWD. Earlier tries proved that Tolly Suomi knew it. He had Vince pretty well locked in.

"Yes, it would certainly save time later. Our main area—," Wolff actually began to reply before he realized what he was doing. He stopped. "Our main area is—roughly in the latitude range 15 to 25 degrees, as it says in the Request For Proposal. That is as far as I can go—after all, Mr. Menoudakis, war has not yet been declared. We don't want to start an international incident here, do we?"

Nice try, Vince. Pulling an area out of Wolff wouldn't have helped VVV much—everybody else would share the information. Suomi had gone along with it just to rub in to the rest of them what a master Vince Menoudakis was. Jack Tukey had hit the nail on the head the first time he had met Menoudakis at a debriefing. "I don't remember what he said to me, Merle, but if he'd asked me to marry him I'd probably have agreed."

The meeting broke up at about 11:30. Merle and Jack Tukey shared a cab back to the WAWD offices on Wisconsin Avenue. They had lots to talk about. Jack had news on the evaluation procedure, straight from the horse's mouth: Petzell's secretary.

"Do you realize I was in the Embers with Lottie Mitchell until two o'clock this morning? I'm telling you, she nearly drank me under the table. I should be getting danger money for my liver. I had seven bourbons and then I just lost count—and Lottie didn't have a hair out of place. Then we went on over to her apartment, and you won't believe this but at half-past-three I found myself doing—"

"Jack, I should get money from you for introducing you to Lottie in the first place," interrupted Merle. "Stop stringing me out, and get to the point. I'm well aware that you do it on purpose."

Jack Tukey grinned. It was a pleasure to see Merle rise to the bait. "All right, if you've got no romance in your soul. It's going to be a four-man review board. Technical evaluation will count 40 points, price 60 points. Now for the bad news. This one's going fixed price, or nothing. Lottie says there's no way they'll give it out on a cost-plus basis. Where does that leave us, Merle?"

Walters looked out at the leafless November trees on Pennsylvania Avenue. "In deep shit, my boy. In up to our necks." He spoke quietly, almost abstractedly. "You know, we've never tried to be the low dollar man on these bids. WAWD offers quality. But I don't know if we can do it this time. Six outfits underbid us. They'll not be a patch on us technically. But you heard those deliverables. Completely undefined. Have the status half-way right after a year, and you'll get paid. And an option to renew for another two years. Doesn't matter how shaky the field position is, as far as I can tell." He fell silent as they drove through the rutted streets of Georgetown. "I'm telling you, Jack. Some half-wit's dreamed this one up to make his name in the Government. We've got to think of some way around it. Fixed price war, is it? What's our edge now?"

He was silent again for a few minutes, then nodded. "When we get to the office, Jack, call up Lottie and make a date for tonight. Most of all, I have to know where this war will be fought. That's the top priority. Location, and combatants. We've got a six-month job ahead of us, and two weeks to do it in. You'll have to risk your kidneys again. And one other thing. I need to know how they'll be auditing this one. If it's genuine fixed price, there shouldn't be any Government audit of it at all."

Merle sat slumped in the car seat, staring into space. His right hand rubbed the shoulder of his empty sleeve and his blunt features were twisted in thought. Jack thought how much the old man was aging, how ill he looked. Maybe this effort was just too much to ask of him.

Merle glared at him, suddenly alive again.

"Stop gawping at me like a half-wit, Jack. When we get to the office, I want to talk to CBS and NBC. You handle ABC. Here's the way it goes."

Jack felt a surge of relief as Merle outlined his plans. Down but not out. As usual, Merle seemed to have found his angle.

"Can we price it low enough, Merle?"

"If it works out the way I'm hoping, we can underbid everybody in the business. I want you to fly out to the West Coast tomorrow night and bounce the main ideas off Alex Burns. He's key to this. I'll find somebody else to woo Lottie in your absence. Maybe I'll recruit Vince Menoudakis for the job."

Jack sniffed. "You'll be doing Lottie a disservice. You know these high power sales types. Lots of promises—until it's time to deliver. Then they don't have what it takes. Tolly Suomi, he's the man for my money."

"You don't have that much money, Jack. Here, give me a hand to get my stiff leg out of the cab. I feel like Pinocchio today."

* * *

The air was full of gray sand and black smoke, blinding the soldiers and blotting out the fierce desert sun. Tanks were barreling forward through the dust, a group of men with combat lasers following each one. The long, high scream of an omniprojector was approaching along a dry wadi, and a Clarke neutralizer was turning to meet it, lobed antennae moving into exact phase for cancellation. The operators of the neutralizer were tunneling deep into narrow trenches in the sand, reading the strength of the omniprojector signal on the dials set in their helmet displays.

"Mr. Suomi calling on line one, Mr. Walters."

"At last." Merle grunted in satisfaction. He left the screen display running, reached over and picked up the receiver. Tolly Suomi's bland, unlined face appeared on the intercom screen.

"Perhaps I am calling at an inopportune time, Merle. It sounds as though you are tuned to the NBC news report. Should I call back later?"

"No. I've been trying to reach you all day. I asked your office to find you and give you the message to call me. Where are you, Tolly?"

"Newark, New Jersey."

"Can you be here in Washington, tonight?"

Suomi's face, as usual, betrayed no curiosity or surprise. "I can. By seven o'clock at the latest, perhaps by six-thirty."

"I'll be here." Merle broke the connection and leaned back in his chair, looking for a comfortable position.

On the screen, the Clarke neutralizer had been homed on by a seeking missile and was out of action. The omniprojector was advancing again. Men fell before it, flopping and convulsing like landed fish as the vibrations tuned to their central nervous system frequencies.

Merle watched as the NBC newscaster summarized the day's fighting, the advances and retreats. It was on the nose with his own scratchpad estimates. He placed a call to Alex Burns and sketched out a scenario. Alex objected to some of the ideas, and they went at it hammer and tongs for the rest of the afternoon. When Suomi arrived they were still arguing. Merle waved him to a seat, fired a final salvo, and cut the connection.

"Never try and argue with a Scotsman, Tolly. Stubborn as donkeys. Must be the oatmeal."

Suomi smiled, smooth white in smooth ivory. "Alex Burns?"

Merle nodded. "You know him, do you? He's right again, blast him." He leaned back, his voice a bit too casual. "Had any chance to see much of Alex's work? I was wondering what you think of him."

"The same as you do, Merle. Not just the best, the very best." Suomi smiled the Tolly smile, a fraction of an inch elevation of the corners of his mouth. "Don't let's be coy, Merle. You know quite well I've tried to hire Alex Burns from you. Probably as many times as WAWD has tried to steal Vince Menoudakis—and with the same success. Nothing."

"Tolly, I don't own Alex. His job does. Get ahead of us on the simulations, and Alex would take a job with VVV tomorrow to find out how you do it. I couldn't hold him a day."

"And how to do that, when Alex Burns leads the world on simulation mock-ups." Suomi waved his arm at the display screen. "He's an artist with that thing. He can make it more real than reality. Burns is an artist the way Disney was, posing as something else. I'll tell you, Merle, I've needed an Alex in the past six months."

Merle nodded, his eyes averted. "Aye, it's been a hard time for all of us, Tolly."

The reaction was a Suomi maximum. One eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch. The sign of strong emotion. "Hard? When you've won the last four war jobs, in a row? Merle, I'm not here for social reasons. I dropped everything to get here today—just as you knew I would. We've been running in circles since the November bidders' conference, trying to find out how you can price the way you do and still make money. We've got our sources in Contracts Departments, same as you—and we still don't know how you do it."

Merle smiled, rubbing his left shoulder in his habitual gesture. "You're not a poker player, Tolly. You show your hand."

"I'm a chess player, Merle. I can tell when somebody is planning seven moves ahead and the rest of us are playing six. We've been competitors for a long time, the two of us. For fifteen years we've been neck and neck. Now, what's your secret?"

"You know, don't you, that we sewed up the TV rights for the Trucial War with NBC? That was a twenty million dollar deal, just for special footage."

"I know. It was a neat idea, putting it on the same basis as the Olympics—but I know that's not your trick. We caught on to that last Christmas and now we use it in our bids too." Suomi placed his hands flat on the desk between them. "The real thing, Merle. What will it cost me to get it? You know I'll find out anyway, if I stick at it. And VVV won't go broke without it. But you have to know what it feels like to lose four big ones in a row. Name your price, I'll pay it."

A lengthening silence. Merle looked out at the gardens far below, dusk falling over the bursting azaleas of early May. "You seem sure of yourself, Tolly. Got an insider in our accounting department?"

"I don't need that, Merle. Look at this office." He gestured at the furniture. "The better you're doing, the cheaper and lousier the fixtures. I daren't sit down too hard on this chair in case it falls apart. Come on, Merle, let's get to it. What's your price?"

"I've got my price, Tolly. Here's the ticket I'm selling." He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his wallet. From it he took a sheet of paper about seven inches square. "That came to me yesterday."

Tolly Suomi read through it, caught his breath, and read it again, slowly. At last he lifted his head and looked Merle Walters straight in the eye. "How long, Merle?"

"You tell me. The medics can't seem to agree. One month, six months, two years. From now on, it's a game of roulette. Good thing Jack Tukey's ready. He'll make a good president for WAWD." He paused expectantly. "Don't you agree, Tolly?"

Suomi hesitated, for the beat of a hummingbird's wing. "An excellent president, Merle. He has a good business head, he eats work, and he can pick the right people—and keep them, too. Jack will make a good president for WAWD—a great president. In ten years' time." His voice raised a little. "You see, Merle, we've met, what, thirty or forty times over the past fifteen years? But I think I know you as well as you know me. Jack Tukey has one failing, but it's one you can't live with. Jack doesn't hate war—yet—as Merle Walters hates it. He doesn't hate the stupidity of it, the cruelty of it, the very idea of it."

Merle bowed his head. "I'm a war hero, Tolly, didn't you know that? To a lot of people in this country I'm Mister War himself. Generals are proud to shake my hand. I got this—" He gestured at his empty sleeve and left leg. "—being a hero, forty years ago in the Pacific. Fighting your countrymen. No, it's Tolly Suomi that really hates war, I would say. You remember World War Two, Tolly?"

"I was eight years old when it finished, Merle. I remember it. I lost no arm, no leg. But I was on holiday in the country, when my family was home in Nagasaki. I remember that. And other things, I remember your cost-benefit study, showing that napalm is not a cost-effective weapon of war. How much did that study cost you, Merle?"

"Enough so no one would question our results. And VVV Industries' analysis, showing that antipersonnel fragmentation bombs aren't a good investment of war capital. How much did that one cost you, Tolly?"

"As you say, Merle, enough. Vince did a marvelous sales pitch on that one."

"The next president of VVV, Tolly? Would Vince want it?"

Suomi looked quizzically at Walters and waved the thought away. "You don't hire Liszt and ask him to move pianos. Vince is an artist, too. He has something we can't analyze—no place for it in chess or poker. People like him, he likes them, he sells them. Never fails. He's right where he is."

Merle nodded quietly, rubbing the side of his face with his hand. The two men sat in silence for several minutes. Finally Merle spoke.

"So now you can guess my price, Tolly. The price for the secret, the way we can underbid the market, every time, on the fixed price war jobs. Only one way I'll accept payment." He gestured at the photograph of Lyndon Johnson, hanging on the wall. "Know why I've got that picture up there, Tolly? I'll tell you. He's the man who turned me from a hawk to—what I am. I lost two sons in Vietnam. Two boys, too young to vote, to feed the ego of a man who wouldn't ever admit he was wrong.

"Merger, Tolly. Merger, with you at the top. Vince Menoudakis as VP of Sales, Alex Burns as VP of Production. And Jack Tukey, as Executive VP, waiting in the wings. Your time will come, too, Tolly, and Jack has to be ready. And maybe I'll be around here for a while yet, as a high-priced easy-life consultant for you—when you need stirring up a bit. Life's not chess, and life's not poker, but there's some of both in it. Merger, Tolly. Let's talk terms."

Suomi sat, face expressionless, one hand stroking his beard. "Perhaps. Perhaps. Would Jack Tukey work for me?"

"He thinks you walk on water, Tolly. So does Alex."

"Suppose I agree, find out how you operate, then back out?"

"That's tough titty for Merle Walters. A man either goes along with his judgment of people, or he's got nothing. That's the least of my worries, Tolly."

Suomi was nodding slowly. "My ancestry and education prepared me for this, Merle. There has been something that year by year has bound our fortunes tighter together, two caterpillars in one cocoon." He held out his hand. "Agreed in principle—details to be worked out. I hope we both live to see an end—to the lawyers putting the groups together. It will take a while. You control a stock majority, I hope?"

Merle nodded. "As you do. I did a little tracing of the lines on VVV this morning."

"Then it can be done. So now, Merle, tell me. Tell me something that has been on my mind every spare minute for six months. You are bidding fixed price and you are thirty percent lower than the rest of us. How are you doing it?" Suomi was leaning forward intently.

Merle opened the credenza behind him, pulled out a bottle and two glasses. "Champagne, Tolly. Let me savor the moment. You'll have to open it. It takes two hands."

"You were that sure of yourself?"

"Either way, I would drink the champagne. Take a look at this."

He turned on the display screen. The picture filled with scenes of battle, again in the desert. The heat, the smoke, the noise, the chaos, almost the smell seemed to spring from the screen.

"Now, Tolly, what are you seeing?"

"The Trucial War. I don't know which action. Last week's, maybe, up on the border."

Merle smiled and raised his glass. "You've got a great eye, Tolly. It's the Trucials, it's even a border skirmish—but it's next week, not last week. You said that Alex Burns is a genius. I agree. Half the battles in that war never happen. They're Alex's simulations. We ship the footage to NBC—they pay for it—and they weave the commentary around it. Much better for them, they don't have to keep a camera team out in the field. About half the footage is genuine fighting. The rest is Alex."

Suomi's eyes were flicking from the screen to Merle and back again. He was running rapidly through the difficulties, the possibilities. "How can you meet the deliverables? How can you pass an audit?"

"No audit. Fixed price war, remember? Deliverables ? We maintain the lines we promised—you know, these aren't wars to win, they're to hold the status quo. We find the bidders on the other side, as early in the game as we can. We agree what will be fought, what will be simulated. They buy the simulations they need from us—a tidy profit there for WAWD. We have to mix it up, in case there are parties of journalists or junketing politicians. They see genuine battles. How can somebody tell if the other battles they see on the screen are real?"

"And you make a profit?"

"Thirty-five percent. No matter how much the simulations cost, or how much it takes to keep things going smoothly, nothing costs as much as a war—even a small one. One other thing, Tolly. Go and take a look at the war hospitals. There are still deaths, because there are still battles. We stopped the worst maiming a while back, the two of us, when we got rid of the worst weapons. Now, the injuries are down again—and WAWD gets credit for tactics and brilliant fighting."

Merle Walters raised his glass again. "Here's to the merger of WAWD Corporation and VVV Industries—the War leaders. You'll have to keep up the struggle now, Tolly, until some day maybe we'll get some sense. I'm not optimistic. We're aggressive animals, the lot of us. But here's to War, damn its soul."

Tolly Suomi was thoughtful. He flexed his shoulders, feeling a new weight there. At last he too raised his glass. "To the merger. And to our motto: War is much too serious a thing to be left to the Government."

The glasses clinked. On the screen in front of them, the battle raged.

Afterword.

This is a pure example of the type known in science fiction as the "If this goes on. . ." species. If Government is willing to contract out the development of weapons, including the conceptual design, fabrication, and testing, why shouldn't they take the logical next step and contract out the war? If they did, what would happen?

Apart from fairly frequent excursions to England and to the Middle East, I have lived close to Washington D.C. for many years, and have dealt a lot with the Federal Government. The contracting details and bidder's conferences in this story are drawn from the life (if it is appropriate to assign any suggestion of animation to the U.S. Government).

To anyone who thinks the story could actually happen: sorry, even fixed price contracts are subject to federal audit.

MARCONI, MATTIN, MAXWELL

Venus Station.

Saturday 24th, 2:30 a.m.

Dear Professor Benson,

The draft of Gerald Mattin's biography for your volume 'The Lives of the Great Scientists' is finished. I am sending it to you under separate transmission. Sorry to run so close to your deadline, but it's hard to compress his twenty-five years into twenty pages.

Your other request for new 'personal incidents' and 'intimate touches' from my time working with Mattin is a tough one. As you say, no doubt I knew him as well as any man did. Everybody knows that he saved my life at the expense of his own, so that's not new. "How would you describe the real Gerald Mattin?," you ask. How would I describe the real Gerald Mattin? I'm not sure the words are in the language. And if they are, you would not want to offer that particular 'personal touch' to your young readers.

What can I say? I think the best thing is to tell you here—and for the first time—the full story of my association with Mattin; then you can use any of it as you think fit. Don't be surprised if it doesn't match the standard accounts too well. And don't get worried about the biography I'm sending for your book—I need the money, and what you will receive tells the well-known official version of Mattin the Great and Noble Scientist.

When it all began twenty-five years ago I still had my offices on K Street. My business partner had recently vacated his office as a result of an unsuccessful trading venture in pharmaceuticals. He was on the Venus terra-forming project, three years hard labor without the option, and I was trying to make sense of his business records and client lists when Mattin breezed in.

No appointment, of course. He would never have dreamed of calling in advance. He barged in without knocking, said "Henry Carver?," and helped himself to a chair when I nodded. I looked at him without much enthusiasm—as a potential client he was not promising material. About twenty-four years old, thin as a stick, with dry black hair and a face that was still fighting the last battles with acne. He was smoking a black cigar that looked as thin and wicked as he did.

"I'm Gerald Mattin. I'm here to give you a chance to make fifty million credits, Carver," he said.

Well, you can't always go by appearances, and politeness is free. "Mr. Mattin, you certainly know how to catch a man's attention," I began smoothly. "But you have the advantage of me. You know my profession and I don't know yours. What is your line of business?"

"I've got a system for instantaneous point-to-point transfer of objects. Energy-free, in the right circumstances. Distance not a factor."

If I'd known a bit more science that's when I'd have thrown him out of the office. I groped around in my memory for childhood reading.

"You mean—teleportation?"

"Naw. None of that 'think yourself some other place' rubbish. This is solid math, solid physics, and state-of-the-art engineering. Ever hear of Ernst Mach, or Minkowski, or Weyl or E.A. Milne?"

Milne rang another bell in my childhood memory bank. I thought of Eeyore and decided Mattin must be off his head. I shook mine and he seemed pleased.

"Good. I want a working partner who knows not too much science and no general relativity. If you'd given the wrong answer I'd have been out of that door. The people who gave me your name were sure you'd have a fifth grade education in physics." He grinned nastily. "You also have a reputation for being a tricky lawyer, a man with good contacts for investments and a strong taste for credits. Unless you want to deny that lot, let's talk business."

He was brash, arrogant and rude. But he had mentioned fifty million credits and that didn't happen every day. I suppressed my irritation.

"Mr. Mattin, I am sure that you did not come to see me merely to offer gratuitous insults. You have a method for moving objects—a matter-transmitter, you might say. Now, if you want me to act as your legal representative in pursuing patents and corporate financing from transportation groups there will be several formalities. First, my fee for such work is a ten percent carried interest, plus expenses for patent search, filing fees and travel."

"Carver, you're a raving madman." He stood up abruptly and walked over to stub his cigar in my window pot of prize fibrous-rooting begonias. I mentally added a percent to my fee. "In the first place, you'll get two percent and no expenses, take it or leave it. This thing will be worth two or three billion credits five years from now, conservatively. In the second place, do you think I'm crazy enough to patent this thing, or let some big transportation company get their hands on it? There'd be leaks, I'd be out in the cold before I could whistle and the big boys would be off and running."

Paranoid, he seemed to be. I dropped my first idea of selling him out to General Transportation, and he went on.

"What do you think I'm offering you your interest for? I can tell you now, it's not for your smile or your legal abilities. I want you to promote this, sell a forty percent interest to a group which isn't in transportation now, but which would like to be if it could get a big enough piece. That's your job—to raise the money. If you can't do it, tell me now and we'll stop wasting each other's time."

I thought for a while as Mattin sat and fidgeted. It might be possible. We'd need a working model—the group I had in mind would need pretty good proof that they were onto a good thing. And I'd need to know a lot more about it before I began. I had already seen enough of Mattin to agree that I would have to be the salesman. I nodded slowly.

"Maybe. How much money do you need to get things going?"

"A million credits—maybe a million five."

"That's to set up the whole transportation company?" I asked.

He laughed. "No way. That's to do the full-scale tests—after that we'll need big money."

He was insane, I decided. A million credits for a test. He saw my expression and backed off a little.

"Look, Carver, you have to know more about this thing. It's a completely new principle. It's only energy-free, exactly, for transfers in a strictly Lorentzian space-time. Where there's curvature—matter—you need some energy even if the Link transfer points are on timelike geodesies. You need a lot more energy if the transfer points are not on timelike geodesies but are on a Newtonian equipotential surface—and you need an impossible amount of energy unless the configuration is perfectly symmetrical with respect to all Link transfer points."

At the time, and for a long time afterwards, that speech was complete gibberish to me. I don't have total recall, but I do know Mattin's exact words—I learned long ago to record in full all conversations in my office. That has saved my skin more than once in the past. I shook my head at Mattin.

"I hear you, Mr. Mattin, but I can't make head or tail of what you are saying. Tell me in English, please."

He shouted back at me. "English, you dummy! I already put it in really simple-minded language for your benefit." He controlled himself and swallowed hard. "I'll put it even simpler for you. To set up the Mattin Link system on the surface of the Earth is the end objective, but it's going to take tremendous energy to establish and a lot of money. We just can't tackle that first. It's not possible to set up a practical system out in space, because the relative distances of the Link entry points keep changing.

"What we have to do is test it in space, for the simplest case—four entry points, in a regular tetrahedron. It will still be quite a trick to get the distances just right for long enough to do the transfer, but it can be done—I've calculated it. Then when we've demonstrated it in space we'll be able to get backing easily for the operational big system here on Earth."

I was getting the idea, vaguely, and I didn't like the sound of it. Mattin had no working model. So, no model to show the backers. A million credits before we could demonstrate anything. Space work—always a fine way to run up the costs. I wondered if I was the madman, listening to Mattin at all.

"Can't you make just a small working model, here on Earth?" I asked. "Just to show off the general idea?"

"Out of the question. The Earth-based system has to have all the entry points practically symmetrical with respect to the center of mass—I told you, they've got to be on an equipotential, and perfectly symmetrical with respect to each other." He shook his head firmly. "Even the simplest system with four Links will require a horrible amount of energy to initialize on Earth. That's basic physics—the system's not conceivable without it. It's space or nowhere for the test. Now, how long will it take you to get adequate backing?"

I looked at him sadly, and shook my head in turn. "It's quite impossible. With no patents, no working models—nothing, in fact, but an idea—we could never get the financing."

Mattin looked at me with a dead-fish expression on his face.

"Tough luck, Carver," he said. "I guess that's goodbye to your fifty million credits."

I won't tell you how I found the backing, Professor Benson. It makes me uncomfortable to think of it even now. Can you imagine trying to raise millions of credits, with nothing but a wild-sounding idea to peddle, with a main character who was so paranoid that he would tell the details of his system only to people that he judged could not understand them? With no working models, no mechanical drawings, no patents.

I did it. I don't think I could or would do it again, but I did it. I proved that there are people greedy and rich enough that a bet with a multi-billion credit monopoly payoff could be attractive, even with those odds. But then, my backers were no strangers to gambling.

They left me in no doubt of what my fate would be if the Mattin Link system was less than I promised, but in ten weeks I had the papers—such as they were. Our sponsors were not used to much in the way of written agreements. I called Mattin and he came to the office. Like the backers, he was suspicious of video-phone conversations.

He came in as sullen and jittery as ever, then went over the agreements with a total and cold concentration. Oh, I'd checked Mattin out, you can be sure of that, within a few hours of our first meeting. No one had denied that he was a genius—and a madman. I really saw the first evidence of it when I watched him swallow down all the intricate financial details of our arrangement cold, in one sitting in my office. Then he came right back at me with a set of complex questions for our sponsors. He digested the new information with equal speed, then silently handed me a document of his own.

"I know how much I'm worth to your friends once the system is working and the method known," he said. "I took out a little life insurance."

He had the right idea. Once the invention was proven, he'd be expendable and so would I. The paper he had given me was a copy of one he had filed at Central Bank. It was quite brief. If Gerald Mattin died in less than five years from the date of the first successful demonstration of the Mattin Link, all rights in the invention—mine, Mattin's and the backers'—went to the World Government, in toto and in perpetuity.

"What about my five percent?" I complained. "You know I'm reliable."

(I forgot to mention that I'd levered my interest up little by little as the game got harder—and I'd earned every fraction of a percent. Mattin was smart enough to know when he had to give a little to keep me going.)

Mattin looked at me curiously as though he had just turned over a stone and found me underneath it.

"Sure," he said. "You're reliable."

I didn't pursue the point—but I didn't mention the document to the backers either. They might kill Mattin after the successful demonstration; they would have killed me before the demonstration, without thinking twice about it, if they had found out I had worked them into a deal where Mattin's accidental death would mean their loss of ownership.

Those gentlemen did not seek temporary solutions. Besides, I was sure I could convince them that Mattin was worth more alive.

Anyway, we had the money for the tests. I handled all the purchasing—four old cargo hulls, already in earth orbit, four power plants and a minimum of supplies. Mattin hid himself away in total secrecy and built four Mattin Link generators, one for each cargo ship. He calculated exact orbits for each, and an exact time at which all four Links could be switched on, when the hulls were in free fall at the vertices of a regular tetrahedron. Finally, he made up a compact test package for the transfer itself, designed to measure the forces it experienced in transit. Theoretically they would be zero, he asserted—no question of inertia or of acceleration entered the Link transfer process.

All this took six long months, but it was all ready on time. I added weight and ulcers. Mattin became thinner than ever and bit his fingernails to shreds. We hired three operator crews for the hulls, with Mattin handling the fourth one himself—the one with the experiment package to be sent through the Link system. He gave the other crews just enough instructions to be useless—he was afraid they would learn too much. The Mattin Links were all activated automatically by radio from the computer on Mattin's ship at the correct microsecond.

Finally, the big moment arrived. I watched through a video link to my office on K Street. I don't like space, never have. I sat at my desk and watched a digital countdown to the time the transfer would take place.

The tension was unbearable. Finally, after a few seconds that lasted forever, zero hour came. And went. Nothing. The test package sat there in the Link transfer zone, unmoved. I sat and shredded paper towels as the minutes ticked by. Nothing. When I was ready to run screaming round the room, Mattin came on the screen.

"Something's wrong," he said. I could have told him that. He didn't seem as worried as I felt, not by a long shot. "It's almost certainly in the phase control. Tell the backers we'll have to come back to Earth so I can take a good look at it."

I may have been less smart than Mattin in some ways, but I was way ahead of him in others. One thing I had been careful not to do was tell our sponsors when the test would be made. I sat there and congratulated myself on my foresight.

"How long before you're ready to try again?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Month, maybe, two months—hard to say."

That was the beginning of the worst time of my life. Seven failures, Professor Benson. Seven! Every one of them a cliff-hanger. Each countdown in my office was like the moments before an execution. By the third test we were sending things through the Link—but the test equipment would arrive inside out, melted, reduced to powder (tests three, four and five respectively). On the sixth test, the equipment got through in one piece—a bit battered, but not bad. Unfortunately we had promised our backers that the Mattin Link could be used to transport people as well as objects, and that's what they were expecting to see.

On the seventh test, Mattin seemed very pleased with the results. This time he was on the cargo hull where the test equipment was arriving. He came on to the video link and gave me a thumbs-up sign.

"The equipment came through fine, meters all working properly. Still needs work, though."

"Why does it need work, if the Link did its stuff correctly?" I looked at the video and could see the test equipment, apparently in good shape. Then I looked more closely. Next to the equipment were a big grey pancake and what seemed to be a long hairy worm. "What are those things?"

"Well, I said it needs a bit more work," Mattin said defensively. "I think the phasing is still a touch off. See what it did to the rats we sent through this time."

I looked again at the hairy shapes, then had to run across my office to vomit into the only available container, which was unfortunately my long-suffering pot of prize begonias.

"No big problem," said Mattin cheerfully. "A week's work should fix it."

Before he could get his week, we had a new problem. We were running out of money, and our backers were running out of patience. I was summoned to a chilling meeting, behind the stage at the opera house in Mexico City. One of our backers was big on opera. The message I got was brief but precise. There was no more money in the pipeline, but there was big trouble in it unless we had instant success. I talked—for my life.

We were almost there, I swore, another few weeks would do it, one last test was all we needed.

I had to wait three hours in the cold, empty backstage. Finally the word came down. Two weeks to prove ourselves. No more money. We had to find our own. I knew what came next if we failed and took the gloomy news back to Mattin. We considered our limited options.

"Look what we need," he said. "First, we have to rent another cargo hull and power plant. One of the four we got has an expired lease and we can't renew it. So we need money for that. We have to have it. But we don't really need crews on all the hulls. They never do anything anyway, and it's all computer-controlled to switch on the Links at the right time. We could manage the whole thing."

My insides did a rapid cartwheel. "What do you mean, we? You're not trying to get me up into space, are you? You know I've got a weak stomach."

"Look here, Carver, are you absolutely convinced this test will work?" he replied. "I am, but are you?"

I thought about that, then shook my head. "It'll flop; ten-to-one odds."

"Then where would you rather be if it flops—here to face the backers, or up there with a decent chance to escape to the Lunar Base or the Venus terra-forming project?"

Mattin was odious, but supremely logical. I scraped up what was left of our meager finances and went off to bargain with the friendly discount spaceship company.

We managed to get a cargo hull and a power unit, but so cheaply that I knew there had to be something wrong with them. I just had no alternatives. I signed a short-term lease and called Mattin. He was ready. I had no excuses left. The next morning we were off to pick up the cargo hull from parking orbit and load the power unit on board it.

If you've never been in space, Professor Benson, take my advice and don't go. Free fall is constant nausea, a sort of static seasickness. After we were installed in the cargo hull with our equipment, I had nothing to do but think of my general misery and the unknown dangers of space travel. While I was doing that, Mattin was frowning over the rented power unit.

"How much did you pay for this thing?" he finally asked.

"All we had."

"Well, it's all set to blow, looking at these readings. As soon as we complete the Link transfer, it has to be shut down—it's not safe."

A power unit running amok was all I needed.

"What happens if it blows before we complete the Link?" I asked.

"We get into the shielded compartment," Mattin replied. "It's intended for use in bad solar flares, but it works just as well if a power unit goes wild."

I took a look at the shielded compartment. Ample room for one, but a tight squeeze for two.

At the other end of the ship the Mattin Link area was set up, with a blue line drawn by Mattin at the active area where the transfer took place. The test equipment was carefully placed there. Then Mattin fed in the programs for the final orbit adjusts of each cargo hull, ours and the three unmanned ones. While he was doing that, I had another secret worry. The Mattin Link drew a lot of power. It seemed to me that might be the thing that would push our power unit into a final blow-up. I was supposed to be watching the dials, but I didn't know what any of them meant. It did seem to me that a lot of them were way up in the red zone.

Mattin finished the set-up and came over to me again. "How's it holding up? We've less than a minute and a half to go to transfer," he said, then bent over the power unit dials. He turned to me immediately, his eyes bulging.

"I thought you were keeping an eye on this. It's way out of tolerance. I don't think it will even hold together until the Link activates—it could go up any second."

Mattin's evaluation was good enough for me. Without taking a second look at the power unit dials I turned and began my drive for the shielded compartment.

I'll never deny that Mattin always thought a lot faster than I did. By the time I began he was halfway there, and my lack of experience in free fall slowed me down. When I approached he had already crowded into the compartment, then turned with his back braced against its rear. As I floated nearer, instead of squeezing to the wall to let me in too he lifted his feet up and gave me a great kick in the chest. It reversed me and I started to spin back along the length of the hull, unable to make contact with anything solid.

One of the things they don't bother to tell you before you go into space is how slowly things can happen. I floated along the hull towards the Mattin Link transfer area, but I did it incredibly slowly. I was quite active, spinning end over end, shouting and screaming and waving my arms and legs, but none of that affected my forward motion at all. When my body had turned to face Mattin again, I saw that the door of the shielded compartment was firmly closed. I didn't imagine Mattin would open it voluntarily to see how I was doing until after the power unit had done its worst. I tried to get a look at the digital countdown display to see how long it would be before the Link transfer took place, but I couldn't see it from the angle I had.

When I finally collided with the bulkhead at the far end, I had no idea how much time I had left. Subjectively, I had spent the better part of my adult life drifting down that steel hull. Actually it was probably a minute at most. I held the bulkhead and did a quick review of my options. In a few seconds I would be a big pink pancake or a long pink sausage if I didn't get out of the Link transfer area. Or I could be fried purple when the power unit blew. Or—a long shot—I could get back to the shielded area in time, open the door somehow, and squeeze in with that swine Mattin.

I set my legs against the bulkhead and took off with a mighty spring for the other end of the hull. I had been on the way for a second or less when three things happened. First, everything flashed a mother-of-pearl pink. Then I received a tremendous bang on the head. Finally I was given an even bigger smash on my chest and ears. Then I passed out and had a little peace.

Things were not much better when I came to again. The pain in the head and chest were still there, and I had aching eyeballs—I didn't know that was possible. But at least I seemed to be in a bed and I didn't feel either pancake or sausage shaped. My ears didn't feel right but I could hear faint voices somewhere near me.

"I think he's recovering consciousness. Get one of the doctors in here."

I forced my sticky eyes open and tried to sit up.

"Don't try and move, Mr. Carver." I turned to face the speaker by my bedside, a man in the uniform of the Space Rescue Service. "You've had a very tough time and you're lucky to be alive. You somehow suffered explosive decompression from atmospheric pressure to three pounds per square inch, and you almost cracked your skull ramming it into a steel wall. It looked as though you'd jumped straight at it head first. You're lucky that the emergency life support signal tripped on and alerted us. Just lie there and rest."

I lay back and closed my eyes. Unbelievably, the Mattin Link had worked. I must have transferred with all the force of my jump from the bulkhead intact and run straight into another one on the ship I'd linked in to. Why hadn't that idiot Mattin thought to make sure that the two ships were at equal air pressure well in advance of the transfer?

My thoughts turned again to Mattin. That cowardly, cold-hearted monster! Leaving me outside while he sat safe and snug in the radiation-shielded compartment. My anger slowly grew and finally gave me the strength to sit up again and open my eyes.

"Where's Gerald Mattin?" I asked. My voice came out squeaky and hoarse. "He was on the other ship."

I looked around the room for Mattin. I badly wanted to give him a piece of my mind. The three men in the room with me exchanged glances and I could sense an awkwardness and reluctance to speak.

"His very first words," said one of them in a whisper. "They must have been very close."

Finally the Space Rescue man spoke. "We wish we had better news for you, Mr. Carver. The ship Mr. Mattin was on had a power unit failure and he went into the shielded compartment. For some reason we don't understand, the shielding material was completely missing. Your friend died when the power unit blew."

I sank back on the pillow and closed my eyes again. Serves the bastard right. At least I knew now why the price I got from my discount spaceship friends had been so low for the last cargo hull we bought. Radiation shielding was expensive stuff and somebody no doubt had got a good price for it. Mattin had fried and there was no doubt he had earned it.

Before there was any chance for my satisfaction to show on my face, I had another thought. Mattin was dead! The Link must have operated successfully before Mattin died, or I would have fried too when the power unit failed. That meant his document at Central Bank took over. The Government owned all rights to the Mattin Link and I—and our backers—were out in the cold. They couldn't take their revenge on Mattin, but I was still around without two credits to spend on self-protection—the last test had taken every asset I'd owned. Suddenly the aches and pains of the present were insignificant compared to the ones I could imagine in my future.

I wondered if there were any way I could get onto the Venus terra-forming project, without having to go back to Earth.

My anguish must have shown clearly on my face. When I opened my eyes again I found that the young nurse had tears on her cheeks. The doctor leaned over me and patted me consolingly.

"It's a very hard thing to lose a close friend and colleague, Mr. Carver," he said. "But you must try and be strong. Think about your own future."

I did. Everyone was conscious of my strong emotion. There was a hint of moisture in many eyes. But of all the people in the room, Professor Benson, you may be assured that there was not one who was anything like as sad as—

Yours truly,

Henry Carver.

Afterword.

If comedians long to play Hamlet, just as many science fiction writers would like to write humorous stories. It's a dangerous desire. Funny stories don't win Nebulas and Hugos, and no humor appeals to everyone. Besides which, writing humor is hard—there is less latitude than in the serious forms, and a miss tends to be a total miss.

I knew all that before I began this story. It was supposed to be a simple tale of a new transportation system, but somewhere in the middle it took an odd turn. I let it go where it wanted to, then went back and rewrote the beginning. You have just read the result.

Worse than that, I find that when my mind is idle other stories germinate about Henry Carver and his business partner (Waldo Burmeister—you'll meet him later). I now have seven stories in what I think of as my "sewage series." The only thing I can say in my defense is that my children like them.

This story has one other claim to fame. Jim Baen, when he was editor of Galaxy, only once encountered something in a story that he felt was too gross to offer his readers. It was a comment that my narrator made about the eponymous Mattin.

Now I'll bet you're eager to know what it was. It's a quote from Catullus, and it runs as follows:

"quem siqua attingit, non illam posse putemus aegroti culum lingere carnificis?"

No, of course I'm not going to translate it. If there is an increase in the sale of Latin dictionaries in the 1980's, I'll know part of the reason.

POWER FAILURE

The window had been wedged open at the bottom, about six inches. Outside, a great bed of lupins was attracting every bee in the area. Summer bird-songs and the smell of new-mown hay, slipping in through the open window, were an irresistible distraction, and the dark-haired ten-year old sitting at the desk near the back of the room had drifted off, deep in his own thoughts. The lesson went on, dryly analyzing sentence structure.

"Carl! Pay attention. I asked you to do the next example." The teacher was a slim, grey-haired woman in her late forties. Her tone was firm, but tolerant and good-humored. She had seen many children and understood the lure of blue skies and warm grass too well to be surprised by summer dreaming.

Startled, the boy looked down at his book. As he hesitated a triple chime sounded from the big television screen set above the center of the classroom podium.

The teacher looked at the wall clock. "Saved by the bell, eh, Carl? Close your books now, everyone." she said as the screen began to glow. "I'll be starting with you tomorrow, Carl—so make sure you know where we are by then."

The television screen was alive, and the voice from it cut into her final words.

"Science two, lesson twelve. Hello, children, Redman's blessing be on all of us. In today's lesson we will learn more about atoms. Yesterday we learned the basic fact, that all matter is made up of atoms. Perfectly hard, indivisible particles, so tiny that they cannot be seen, even with our best microscopes.

"Nothing smaller than an atom can ever exist. They are the building blocks from which everything in the world is made. Today we will talk about the way that atoms can combine to make other objects, called molecules. Here is a picture of a simple molecule, containing just three atoms . . ."

The teacher glanced again at the boy by the window. His day-dream had gone, and he was watching and listening with total absorption. She looked for a few moments longer, then took out the monthly Church report and made the first check in the red square on Carl Denning's file. The separation of sheep and goats had begun. Behind her on the screen Dalton's atomic theory and its consequences continued. Final truth, unarguable, blessed by the Church of Redman.

". . . discovered three hundred years ago, in 1807, by the great scientist Davy. Write down these formulae and memorize them tonight. Caustic soda: one atom of sodium, one atom of oxygen, and one atom of hydrogen. It is written like this . . ."

* * *

" ' . . . the world . . . hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; and we are here as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.'

"Matthew Arnold's despairing words have more truth now than when they were first written, a hundred and fifty years ago. What kind of world have we fashioned—where one fifth of the species we call homo sapiens choose suicide as preferable to life, where a fourth of the remainder are undergoing treatment for mental illness, where the rest need tranquillizing drugs to drag them from one day to the next?

" 'The world was not always thus; and, I assert, the world need not be thus. Happiness is possible, not for the few but for the many. Not by mysticism, but by the application of clearly defined procedures . . .'—from 'Fundamental Attitudes in Human Society, 1625 to 2025,' by Jahangir Redman."

* * *

At seventeen, Carl found life more enjoyable and interesting. With grammar lessons far in the past, school work was a constant stimulation. But sometimes, like today, it could also be bewildering.

There were no outside distractions as he struggled with his analysis, only a faint sound of the wind. Winter was in command, deep snow lay outside, and the windows were opaque with delicate patterns of ice crystals. Each year it was a little colder, the summers a little shorter. Carl had learned the reason in his classes on meteorology. The solar constant was down by a tiny amount and the earth had moved into a minor ice age, like the one in the seventeenth century. They had looked at the old Brueghel paintings of snowy European winters, and studied the centuries-long changes in solar activity.

The teachers had explained it in detail, history as a function of climatic change. Here, a small decrease in the sun's output had frozen out the Viking colonies in south-west Greenland, stopping the westward exploration and leaving a place in history for Columbus. Here, harsh winters had driven the Indian tribes south from the Dakotas, to a permanent resettlement in milder climes. Further back, a period of high solar activity and the existence of a land bridge across the Bering Strait had made possible the first migrations into North America.

The chill now was mainly psychological, the feeling of living in a bleak era. The growing season was shorter by five days than fifty years ago, but the prediction was for a steady increase in solar activity now, and warmer weather in another twenty years. There was no problem with power. Electricity was abundant and cheap, and the rare frosts helped to keep summer insect pests under control.

Carl's problems today did not concern the weather. He paced the corridor outside the lab, waiting for the free question period. At seventeen, he had reached full height but not weight, a tall, pale, intense youth, thin-limbed and angular. A beard, dark as his hair, had already progressed to the point where he shaved twice a week—secretly, to avoid the jibes of his class-mates. The Church's selection processes had brought Carl to this school after four previous screenings. He knew that his fellow-students were more inquisitive, quicker and less receptive to pat answers, but he had yet to correlate that with the Church edicts that each year decided his school.

"All right, Carl, what's the problem today?" Mr. Nielsen showed no trace of his Scandinavian ancestry. He was small, balding, hook-nosed and pointed-chinned, and his teaching matched his appearance—dry, precise, and brooking no argument. He had no time for uncertainty. The inside of his mind held no shades of grey, just black and white facts and an invincible confidence in their correctness.

"I'm having trouble understanding the recent work, sir. At least, I understand it in pieces, but I can't put them together."

Carl saw Nielsen's look of incomprehension. He knew he had to make this as clear as he could. "You see, last year we did Newton's laws and Newtonian dynamics, and that made perfect sense."

Mr. Nielsen raised his eyebrows. "I should hope so, Denning. It is, as I hope you realize, one of the great truths on which the wonderful edifice of modern science is erected."

His tone was critical and unsympathetic. Carl hurried on. "Yes, sir, and this year we did Maxwell's equations, and they made sense too. At least, I thought they did. Then yesterday I started to look at what happens if you accelerate something up to the speed of light—just keep on applying a constant force, and use Newton's second law of motion. The answers you get are ridiculous, if you believe that Maxwell's equations can be used to describe the behavior of light waves."

He stopped. Mr. Nielsen was frowning and shaking his head. "You are being caught in an old trap, Denning. Newton's laws and Maxwell's equations both form part of the eternal truths of the world. But the attempt to combine them, as you did, is a meaningless exercise. Why should you be able to do so?"

Carl flushed. "If they are all part of Nature, they must be consistent with each other, mustn't they?"

Nielsen smiled. "They are consistent, and fit God's great scheme. But there is no reason why you should be able to apply results from one to the other, as you seem to be trying to do." He settled back in his seat, then spoke again in kinder tones. "You see, Carl, truths may be distinct and absolute, standing in their own right. You must go and think about these things in more depth, until the relationship of our knowledge to the world we live in becomes more clear to you."

After Carl had left the room, dejected and thoroughly confused, Mr. Nielsen reached into his desk and took out the Church Manual. It was as he had thought. The situation called for a full report, in person. He put on boots, a heavy coat, scarf, gloves and hat, and prepared to slog uphill through the snow to the bleak Mission, outlined above against the gun-metal sky.

* * *

"Sound and video on. Mr. Nielsen, please give us your report."

The speaker was heavy-set and black-bearded, clad in the white uniform of the priesthood. He and his companion, a slight, fair-haired man, listened to the report, then asked detailed questions. Nielsen, his fingers too cold to unbutton his coat, and shivering in the unheated, stone-floored room, answered with chattering teeth. At last he was allowed to go, back into the harsh, gathering darkness of the late afternoon.

As he left, the fair-haired priest locked the door and rubbed his hands together. "Damn cold today, Jason. Get the infra-red on in here, before I freeze. Let's hope Nielsen doesn't get frostbite on the way back to the school."

His companion threw a wall switch and the radiant heaters concealed in the roof beams came on at once. "Don't worry about him," he replied. "Get me some coffee, and let's have some brandy in it. Though I must admit it would be a nuisance to have to replace Nielsen, he's so perfect for the job he does. He's convinced he's doing the most important job in the world. Anyway, Luis, what did you think of his report?"

The fair-haired Luis turned from the wall cupboards, holding two steaming mugs in one hand and a bottle in the other. "Denning's coming on fast, Jason. Too fast, if you ask me. We'll have to recruit him a year early, by the look of it. He's beginning to get a smell of relativistic effects, and we don't want him spreading any of those ideas around the town." He poured hefty shots of brandy into the two mugs. "He won't accept Nielsen's views for much longer."

Jason took one of the mugs and sipped it thoughtfully. "Pity, really. I'd like to have Denning finish this course before we take him—it's an awkward time to have to begin training him at the Center." He rubbed at his black beard with a powerful, square hand. "How about if we make sure he sees a burning?—that should keep him quiet for a while."

"None scheduled here for a few months. Hold on a minute, Jason." Luis went to the wall computer and keyed the event data service. "There's one two weeks from now in Lukon. That should be near enough–it's not more than forty miles north. We'll need to fix up a reason for Denning to be up there."

"Easy enough. We'll have him visit the science museum there and arrange for him to get stranded." He placed his mug back on the wall table. "Your turn to make the arrangements. And I'll bet you one thing, Luis. I bet we have to do something more about Denning before the year is over, burning or no burning. I've seen him, and I think he's moving fast enough to reject all the usual answers long before that. We'd better face it, Luis, Denning's a good deal smarter than either of us."

Luis scowled. "He's not eighteen yet. I'll take that bet. I don't think he's all that unusual."

As he spoke, the two men entered the elevator that carried them below ground level to the electronic heart of the Mission. They didn't give a second thought to Nielsen, still struggling back downhill to the school. Outside, the temperature was dropping steadily, already well below freezing and heading down for thirty below. The night was clear, with an ice halo circling the full moon. The radio messages from the Mission went out to the northern mountains, where Vega burned blue-white above the Lukon Pass, and on to the Processing Center beyond.

* * *

"Gone back to Briarsford? Already? But I was told to be here at five o'clock, for a five-thirty return." Carl held out the paper he was carrying.

The uniformed attendant shook his head. "Showing me the paper won't help. Four-thirty, the hovercraft leaves, every other day. There's no other way of getting there while the snow lasts. You're stuck here in Lukon until Monday, and that's something I can't change."

"But I've got no money, and nowhere to stay. I'll freeze to death, or starve."

The older man laughed. "We're not quite that barbaric here, you know. In Redman's name, what do you take us for? Mr. Nielsen asked me to keep an eye out for you, and you're to stay at the Church Hostel. It's about a mile from here, on the road past the big square. And here's a food voucher for you, compliments of Lukon. If I were you, I'd spend my time worrying about what they'll be saying to you when you get back there. Mr. Nielsen says it's the first time they've lost a boy in fifty visits to the Science Museum. How come you got separated from the rest?"

"I'm doing a special report on hydroelectric power for a school project. They left me off in the power section when the rest of them went on to the biology exhibits." Carl took the food voucher and slipped it into a pocket of his greatcoat. "That report was Mr. Nielsen's idea, anyway."

The attendant shrugged. "Mix-up somewhere, that's for sure. You'd better get over to the Hostel now, while it's not too cold. There's supposed to be a thaw tonight, but I don't feel any signs of it yet. Here, I'll point you the way."

Carl walked over the crackling, blackened ice that formed a mottled crust on the main street of Lukon. Old ice, proof of the long freeze. On either side the houses were stone-built and small, crouching back from the road and closed against the night. As he approached the main square he saw the first signs of activity. A crowd of men had gathered on the central, stone-flagged forum, where two priests of Redman stood by a dark, glistening heap. A white-haired man in a heavy robe was standing, head bowed, between them.

Carl's way to the Hostel was blocked, and he was curious to find out what was going on. He approached the edge of the crowd and moved beside a short, hooded figure who was a little to the rear of the rest of the group.

"What are they doing there?" he asked. "Has there been an accident?"

The cowled figure turned to him. It was a woman in her mid-twenties, with dark, straight hair cut low across her forehead. There was not enough light for him to make out the color of her eyes in the depths of her hood. She smiled at him bitterly.

"You must be even younger than you look. Haven't you ever seen a burning before?"

He looked at the priests and the frail figure between them. His face mirrored his confusion. "No, I've never heard of such a thing. You don't mean they are going to burn the old man?"

The woman put her head back and laughed, this time with genuine amusement. "We haven't come quite to that, yet, even here. It's a book burning—see the heap there, covered in kerosene? Those are books, forbidden texts that the Church of Redman has banned. The old man's 'crime' was keeping them in his library." Her tone was scornful and reckless. "Listen to that crowd of mindless fools."

Carl only half-heard the jeers and taunts of the crowd as the priest placed a torch in the hand of the old man and led him forward, white head shaking, to ignite the soaked pile. He took the woman by the sleeve of her robe.

"What are these forbidden books about? Why are they forbidden?"

"Science. The forbidden sciences." The woman looked at Carl again, noted his intensity, and swiftly looked around her. "This is no place to talk about it, though. I've already said too much. This crowd will be full of Church observers, watching for people talking as we are." Her eyes took on a flickering, reddish-brown reflection as the flames in the square blazed higher. "Look, if you really want to talk more about this, meet me tomorrow at noon, in the Artisans' restaurant. No more talk now. Get out of here—it's not safe to be at a burning unless you are willing to mock men like Wilhelm the librarian there."

She turned quickly and pushed through the thin edge of the crowd. Carl looked after her, then turned again to the scene by the fire. The old man was being led away, tears running down his grimy face. The remaining priest turned to the crowd and seemed to be looking straight at Carl.

"Learn the lesson. Disregard the teachings of Redman at your own risk. There must be no breaking of the Divine Law, and you must cast from your minds and thoughts all ideas of the Old Religion or the forbidden sciences. Now, go to your homes."

The crowd began to disperse. Carl took a last look at the smoldering heap, then turned to continue up the hill to the Church Hostel. The priest watched him go, then whispered into the cowl of his robe as though in prayer.

"Worked exactly according to plan. I think I've won my bet, Jason. Denning shouldn't give us any trouble now—he's as easily impressed as the rest of these simpletons here. By the way, call up Headquarters and tell them we've got an unexpected prize from this burning. Pauli's 1921 review article on General Relativity—in mint condition.

"One other thing." His tone was casual. "The old librarian whose books we confiscated is having some kind of breakdown. We'll have to keep an eye on him for a few weeks. A nuisance, but it can't be helped."

The priest walked slowly to the Lukon Mission, his robe a little bulky. He arrived there just as Carl was settling into his hard bed at the Hostel, his mind busy with the events of the day. The Science Museum, with its endless arrays of exhibits—certain omissions there resonated in his mind, adding to other facts and inconsistencies that he had noticed in the past two years. Then the burning of the books, with the tantalizing references to the 'forbidden sciences', and the mysterious words of the dark-haired woman. They all spun furiously together in his head, until sleep at last removed them.

* * *

The long-awaited thaw had begun during the night. Carl had gone to sleep to the soft rustle of powdery ice flakes against the window-pane. He awoke to a leaden grey sky and a harsh sleet. In a standard issue raincoat and plastic cape he walked gingerly down the hill on the slick, melting surface of the packed snow, past the long line of evergreens, white and bowed down by their glittering burden of ice, until he came to the Artisans' restaurant.

Inside, he looked around at each table. The building was dimly-lit, with ornate examples of wood carving, stone work and metal castings—samples of the artisans' work—in every available nook and corner. He wandered about among the decorations, but although it was already noon there was no sign of the woman. He was turning to look in the street again when a hand took his elbow and a voice behind him said, "The table in the corner. Don't turn round, go to it."

She was wearing the same hooded robe. When she sat across the table from Carl, smiled at him and threw back the cowl, he could get a good look at her for the first time. Her black hair was cut short all round, and her eyes, shielded from view last night, were a clear, dark grey. Her nose was straight and a bit too big, giving her face a decisive, determined look.

"I waited to make sure you were alone." She held out her hand. "I'm Sarah Henderson."

Carl took her hand uncertainly. The school gave no training in the social graces. "I'm Carl Denning. I'm from Briarsford, south of here, and I'm just visiting Lukon for a few days."

She nodded. "I knew you were a stranger to the city. Do you have a food voucher? Let me have it for a minute."

She took out her own meal book, left her coat on the wooden bench and slipped away. A few minutes later she was back, carrying two large earthenware bowls of pea soup and a stack of sandwiches.

"Somebody's looking after you well. They gave you an unlimited food voucher. I took advantage of it to get us a bit more than the usual lunch here."

She was very easy to talk to. As they ate Carl found himself explaining how he came to be in Lukon, about his science training, about his feelings that there were some vital facts being withheld. He began to explain until she stopped him with a shake of her dark head.

"You're wasting your time, Carl. I don't know much about science. They decided years ago that I was best suited to be a language specialist, and that's been my job since then. I'm not teaching now, because they closed the schools until the weather improves. I teach language, and I specialize in poetry and literature."

"But you seemed to know all about the science books that were burned last night. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I know about books, because a lot of my friends work in libraries. Wilhelm last night is one of them. He doesn't know anything about science, either, but he loves books, and he can't stand the idea of destroying any. I feel the same way."

"But so do I, Sarah. We use books about science all the time, and none of us would think of destroying them. Why do you do it here in Lukon?"

Sarah hesitated, biting her lower lip. "It's not just here, Carl," she said at last. "It's everywhere. You just haven't met it yet. You will. Books about science, from a certain period of time, are banned."

"Only about science?"

"That's all I know about. From about 1880 until the rise of the Church of Redman, in 2030, a lot of books were written that are on the forbidden list. They must be surrendered to the Church."

"What happened in 1880? All the basic laws of science that we are taught were known then, anyway."

"I can't tell you that, Carl. You're the science expert." Her voice dropped. "I was given a copy of a book that's on the Forbidden Index, two years ago. I kept it because it's a rarity—very old, printed on woodpulp paper, and with text set by hand instead of computer. It was written a hundred and fifty years ago, but it's in good condition. Would you like to see it?"

Carl nodded and half-rose from his chair. Sarah held out a restraining hand. "Steady now—I don't have it here with me. It's at my house, a mile north of here. Finish your food and then we'll go. Try not to attract more attention—there are people in Lukon who disapprove of my opinions already. I don't want to add to that."

Outside, the sleet was turning to a relentless, hissing rain, driving down hard. The sky was so dark that evening seemed well-advanced, although it was still early afternoon. They trudged, heads down, through the slippery, empty streets. Carl thought again that Lukon was a town without colors, all washed-out greys and somber browns. The rain was so heavy that it seemed to get in everywhere. Their clothing could not keep it out and they were both soaked to the skin before they had walked half a mile. Carl felt an icy trickle working its way inside his collar and down his left shoulder. He shivered, and tried to pull his cape more tightly about him.

They reached Sarah's house with great relief, squelching up the sodden driveway, with its darkening cover of pitted snow, and Sarah unlocked the front door of the low, two-roomed stone house. She went across to the big fireplace and opened the dampers as far as they would go. Water dripped from her clothes, sizzling on the hearth and staining the big fur rug in front of the fire with dark spots.

"Here, we've got to get some dry things on, Carl," she said. "We'll begin to steam in a few minutes and I've had enough colds already this winter. I don't have anything long enough in the arms and legs for you, but I can at least get you a dry robe if you don't mind looking a bit strange."

She went into the bedroom, and rummaged in a big, carved chest there, while Carl squelched backwards and forwards in front of the fire, looking about him with interest. The house was built of heavy limestone, thick-walled and solid. The mixture of old, hand-made furniture with official Church equipment was strange to him, used to the strict modern style of the Briarsford school.

"Can't you see what worries me, Sarah?" he called through the open bedroom door. "Look, even here in your own house. Look at that." He pointed at her television set. "How does it work?"

"The on-off switch is on the left," said Sarah. "Volume is on the right."

"I don't mean that!" Carl was exasperated. "I mean, how can it work, with the science we are taught. Where do the signals come from, and how do they make a picture? Most people don't seem to care, but I want to understand how."

Sarah came back into the living-room. "Well, you're asking the wrong person." She had changed into a soft green woolen sweater and knee-length fawn skirt, her legs bare except for soft leather slippers. Carl looked at her pale knees and smooth, shapely calves, still holding the faint ghost of a summer tan, then turned his eyes away in confusion. She handed him a great armful of assorted clothing.

"Here, go into the bedroom and try your luck with these. I don't have any shoes for you, but here's a pair of oversocks that should keep you warm enough." She threw more logs on the fire. "I don't know how to answer your questions. Have you looked in the library at the school for your answers?"

Carl's grunt of disgust sounded from the bedroom. "I've been through the whole library, and I've asked all the teachers. They're useless. Even on basic things. Look, even in your arts courses you must have covered evolution. How long did they tell you it took to go from mud to man?"

"I don't know. Billions of years, I think they said."

"All right. That means the sun must have been shining, more or less the way it is now, for all that time. Where does it get the energy? I've calculated how much heat it must give out in a year, and there's no way it could keep that up for a billion years with anything we've been taught. Burning won't do it, gravitational contraction won't do it, nothing can do it."

She was startled by the conviction in his voice. He came back into the living-room, a gawky stork-like figure in a robe ten sizes too small for him. Sarah suppressed a smile.

"Mechanics and physics sound all right, Sarah," he went on, oblivious of his appearance. "A perfect logical structure—until you take a close look, and try and synthesize. Look at electricity. We have it, but where does it come from?"

She hesitated. "From the dam and turbines at the head of the valley, doesn't it? The water turns the wheels and the wheels drive the generators."

"That's what we're told. But if my estimates are right, all those generators produce less than a hundredth of what we use. Where do we get the rest of it? There must be a tremendous energy-producing plant near here, but you never hear a word about it."

"Don't harangue me. It's not my doing, Carl. Anyway, does it matter? The important thing is that we have the energy we need."

"No, it's not. I thought you would understand. We are given simple, pat pictures of the world. They may be enough for somebody who has trouble mastering the multiplication tables, but they aren't the full story."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I can't say I really understand you, but I do believe you." She walked about the living-room, setting their wet clothes out to dry. "If you think there may be answers in the forbidden books, I'll get mine for you. I keep it hidden in the attic."

The book she produced was well-preserved and entitled simply 'The Feynman Lectures on Physics.' The language was archaic, more wordy yet less formal than the modern axiomatic instruction texts. Carl settled down in front of the window, with Sarah reading over his shoulder. After ten minutes or so she left him and began to prepare a meal. He was gone, off in a rapt concentration of his own. "Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end," thought Sarah, and smiled to herself as she prepared meat, herbs and vegetables and set them on the stove.

The smell of cooking finally got through to Carl where words could not. He had sat like a statue for four hours, moving only to turn pages. Sarah moved quietly about the house, cleaning and cooking, and from time to time stopping to read a page over his shoulder. At last he lifted his head, sniffed, stretched, and shivered all over like an animal. He looked about him as though he had just entered the room. Sarah came to his side and felt his hand.

"I thought so. You're frozen. You should have moved about, instead of sitting all that time in one position. Come on, move over here and let's get some hot food into you."

They moved closer to the fire. Sarah dimmed the light and put barley bread, beer, plates and a big beef casserole onto a low table between them. She watched in silence through Carl's first two helpings, then looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

"Well, are you going to tell me what you've been doing? Or is it too hard for a simpleton like me to understand?"

Carl was startled, then apologetic. "Sorry, I was still thinking about what I've been reading. I've just been skimming, but it's clear that there's a whole world that's not taught—avoided—in our schools."

"Missing subjects, you mean?"

"More basic than that. For instance, we learn that atoms are indivisible. Now I find from this book that there is a whole world of structure inside an atom. The things we use every day—computers, televisions, things like that—depend on the 'sub-atom' world, and can't function without it. So somebody must know about and use the knowledge. I'm wondering what else there is that isn't taught. This book was written around 1960. What else happened between then, and the founding of Redmanism? That was seventy years later."

He pushed away his plate and sat dejected, hands loosely hanging between his knees. "So much for the things I thought I knew. Now, I don't know if anything I've learned is true." His tone was bitter. "I just don't know what to do next. I can't go back to Briarsford, to be fed on bits and pieces, not knowing what's true and what's nonsense. Poor old Nielsen, with his 'great absolute truths.' I'm sure he believes it. He's a stooge, and he has no idea of it. I can't live like that."

Sarah sat silent, sympathetic. At last she went again to the stove, made two mugs of spiced tea, and handed one to Carl. "If you'll take my advice, you'll sleep on it before you decide anything. A big shock never looks the same the next day."

She placed her mug on the hearth in front of her, then settled herself with her back against Carl's chair, hugging her knees and looking at the flickering flames before her. Her voice was soft. "I remember when my uncle gave me a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. I'd never seen them before. I read myself into a stupor that night, and I thought the world could never be the same again. It never has been the same, quite, but next morning"—she shrugged, ruefully—"there it was, pretty much back to normal. Same old world."

She went on chatting casually about her past, drawing Carl bit by bit into the conversation. Little by little, the food, warmth, firelight and her calm manner unknotted him. He moved from his chair and they sat side by side on the tawny rug, watching the changing red tableau of the fire. Their conversation slowly died with the ebbing flames.

Afterward, they would never agree as to who made the first advance. Carl claimed that it must have been Sarah, citing his lack of experience as his proof. She always denied it, vehemently. There was one minor awkwardness with clothing, that Sarah turned to a joke as Carl fumbled with and at last broke a fastening. Then a second tense moment, when Carl saw the crucifix on its thin silver chain, pendant between her firelit breasts.

"Sarah! You follow the Old Religion!"

"Yes. Does it matter?" She placed her hand softly on him.

Not then. Nothing mattered then. The world would never be quite the same again for Carl Denning.

Much later, Sarah rose quietly from the fireside. She brought two heavy blankets, placed one over Carl's sleeping body and wrapped the second one around her. She went to the window and looked out at the night.

The rain had continued, strengthened. It poured down now in a dark, vertical torrent, dissolving away the hard-packed snow. The night outside was full of the sound of a thousand small streams and rivulets, carrying off the surface water.

Other images formed in Sarah's mind, and she sighed. Still falls the rain. Dark as the world of man, black as our loss—blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails upon the Cross. But now, of course, it's twenty-one hundred nails. It's still falling, and we seem to have learned nothing. Look at my vows—honor, and faith, and a sure intent—and here I am, playing at Earth-mother. The firelight makes him look so young. What will he think when he sees me in full sunlight? A rag, and a bone, and a hank of hair? That's what I should save my sadness for, instead of brooding here over the weather. Driving rain and falling tears—maidens, of your charity, pity my most luckless state. Oh well, omne animal post coitum triste est—except, I bet, a teenage boy. He'll wake up hungry.

Sarah stood up, picked two cushions from the window seat, went to the fireplace, placed one cushion beneath Carl's head, lay down beside him and pulled the blanket over them.

* * *

"The basic ideas that underlie a civilization are not propagated instantly from their creators to the population as a whole. The process takes time. It was more than a hundred years after Newton's great statements of natural laws when the common man realized that the Universe should be capable of rational explanation, of comprehensible mathematical analysis. The secrets of the stars in their courses could be understood. When that realization dawned, the Age of Reason was born. The population as a whole, without of course explicitly knowing why, became convinced that final truths were knowable, and full explanations of the world were possible.

"In the same way, the modern great revolutions in human perception of the Universe have slowly percolated through to the masses. Mankind's fundamental thinking has finally reflected these changes, while not fully understanding them. We will be most concerned to trace the effects of the scientific revolutions that began at the end of the nineteenth century . . ."—from 'Fundamental Attitudes in Human Society, 1625 to 2025,' by Jahangir Redman.

* * *

"Follow the river south, about twenty miles from here. Then take the road west, where the quarry begins." Sarah traced the route with her finger along the wrinkled map. "Keep on that until you cross the Scar, then head north again, following the Scar. Now then. If you believe the rumors that float around Lukon, about forty miles north of there you will find a 'Processing Center.' That's the only place I've ever heard of where the Church had definite rules that restrict access—and that's mainly rumors, as far as I'm concerned."

"But that's less than thirty miles from here," said Carl, dark head intent over the map. "Why not head straight for it?"

"That would take you over the mountains, through the Lukon Pass. It would be an impossible journey at this time of year—and it's patrolled for most of the year. Wild animals, too, in the winter. I've heard there are bears, and some people say there are big wild-cats up there."

They were sitting, heads close together, at the table. A small stack of Sarah's most treasured books were at Carl's left hand. He had read some of the poems in them but was not very impressed.

"There are no rules, Sarah. Nothing that tells you what you can write, and what you can't write. Science is different. It has laws, principles, theorems."

"That's part of the attraction of poetry—you can go just where your imagination takes you. It's not bounded and confined, the way that science always seems to be. Anyway, poetry has its own rules."

"I haven't seen any. Where are they written down?"

"They're not. But they exist. Like the sonnets you read earlier. A sonnet must have fourteen lines of a certain length. If it hasn't, it can still be a poem—but it isn't a sonnet. Writing according to those rules, in a certain form, is part of the pleasure. Look at this." She picked up one of the books. "It goes even further. The poet has written an acrostic sonnet—see, the first letter of each line, read downwards, spells out the name of his mistress. That's a hard thing to do, and still produce a poem that's poetry."

Carl acted unimpressed—but he put the book in his pocket after Sarah had closed it. "Seems to me the best part of the trick is picking a girl-friend with fourteen letters in her name. In science, now . . ."

The Scar was not shown on the map. "It's a barren place," said Sarah. "Where the plants don't grow quite right. It's been that way for a long time, since before I was born. One winter, the power failed for three weeks. There was no electricity, and people nearly froze to death. Next spring, the Scar was there."

Carl looked sceptical. "I can't see how electricity could affect the plants. I'd like to see it, but the way you describe things, the only way to get a look at the Processing Center would be to go over the Lukon Pass, in winter. If it's patrolled when the weather is good, and the southern route is patrolled all the time, I don't see how else to do it."

"You can't do it. It's not possible. Carl, forget what I've been saying—it's only rumors." She was disturbed by the look in his eye.

"I can't forget. I'm not going back to Briarsford until I know what's going on. If the answers are at the Processing Center, that's where I want to go. I won't be able to settle down to anything until I get some answers that make sense to me."

"Not even for . . ." Sarah stopped. She looked again at Carl, leaned back and put her hands to her eyes. As though to herself, she whispered, "If this be error and upon me proved . . ." Then she placed her hands firmly face-down on the table and looked at him again. She sighed. "Give me your meal voucher. Good thing it's unlimited. We'll need at least a week's food. And we'll need back-packs. There's only one tent—it will have to do for two." She smiled. "Sorry, Carl. It's really a small tent. You'll learn the less spiritual side of the female in the next few days."

Carl hugged her, hard. "For that, Sarah, I'll read a hundred more poems if you want me to. Where did you put my outdoor clothes?"

The northern track leading to the Lukon Pass was deserted. Thaw and rain were over, and the sky hinted at more bad weather to come.

* * *

"You just lost your bet. He wasn't on the hovercraft yesterday, and he hasn't slept at the hostel since the first night in Lukon. Why didn't they report to us?"

"The Hostel? Why should they? We didn't give them any special instructions. Did you check Denning's food voucher, to see if he's been using it?"

"And how. He half-emptied a couple of stores—enough food for a couple of weeks. My fault. I didn't have the sense to make it a limited voucher. He could be halfway to Kelso before he needs more food."

"I'll get a tracer on him, Jason. The patrols should get him easily enough, he can't have gone far in two days. You stay there in Lukon. See if you can find where he spent that second night."

"Get an aerial survey, visible and thermal infrared, if you can, Luis. Cover all the roads between here and Briarsford. I'll call again tonight."

It did not occur to them to look north and west. One man, without extra warm clothing and a protective tent, would already have frozen in the mountains. Anyway, there was no way that Carl Denning could have heard about the Processing Center northwest of Lukon. It was an annoyance to have to speed up the recruiting program for a promising prospective scientist, but it had happened before. The search procedures began.

* * *

Nine miles along the track to the Lukon Pass, Carl and Sarah came to the ghost town. The old buildings and deserted streets were wild and crumbling, full of gorse and heather. Sarah refused to sleep inside any of the old houses.

"I know it would be safer, Carl. But it's the thought of all the people who lived and died there, back when this was a thriving town. I don't want to sleep with their spirits."

"That's nonsense, Sarah. When people die, that's the end of it. There are no spirits, if we sleep outside we'll be colder, we'll have to put the tent up, we'll not be sheltered from the wind—and what about those wild animals you told me about?"

Sarah shivered. All the same, they slept outside. It was not too uncomfortable. The hollow ribs of the tent supports were inflated using a small cylinder of gas, to produce a firm, triangular prism within a few seconds. Carl looked doubtfully at the thin shiny walls.

"We'll freeze in this. It's like gossamer."

Sarah shook her head. "We'll be all right. It's made of passivine. It reflects heat, and it won't conduct it."

Carl examined it closely. Another thing his science classes couldn't explain. They crawled inside, and he was amazed to find it warm and snug. Physical closeness, forced on them by the size of the tent, was a delight. Carl's education in the ways of the world continued to grow. But outside, the temperature had dropped again and the first flakes of new snow were beginning to fall.

Before they at last went to sleep, still entwined, Carl had a last, drowsy thought. "What happened to all the people who used to live here, Sarah? Where did they go?"

She came back from the edge of slumber. "We shrank, Carl. Once, before Redman's time, there were six billion people in the world. Then in the Dark Ages, the number went down to one billion, until Redmanism produced stability. It's steady now, with two billion of us, but there are lots of towns like this. To me, they talk their own language, of old weddings and long-dead dreams."

Carl was too tired to ask her what she meant, and by morning they had other things on their minds. Dawn was a continuous, formless white, with sky and earth merging into one at the horizon. Eight inches of new snow had fallen and everywhere there was a silent, virgin cover, unmarked by wind or any sign of bird and animal tracks. Travel was impossible. They moved into a well-preserved stone house—Sarah somehow swallowed her fears of its former tenants—and they settled in to await a change in the weather.

It came after four days, with high winds in the night screaming through the battered roof and blowing the powdery snow into great drifts, sweeping the highlands bare. The next morning, unsure of the decision, they set out again to the north.

By evening they were in the saddle of the Lukon Pass, tired, hungry, cold and depressed. Their movements had become slow and wooden, full of a deadly weariness. The trip seemed impossible. All day long they had toiled upward, seeing no signs of life except a few moorland birds in their drab winter plumage, flying and calling aimlessly above them, and one winter hare, limping across a rocky ridge a few hundred feet in front of them. Fatigue, bone-aching clear cold, drifts of snow and the relentless, iron-grey rocks had drained them. Their minds had become numbed, their bodies uncontrolled. Carl's natural curiosity and Sarah's enthusiasm for natural beauty had gone. They pitched the tent early and crawled into it as dusk approached.

Inside the warm cocoon they lay close and silent, grateful for food, rest, and companionship. By the middle of the evening, they could talk again, could continue their old, ongoing argument. Sarah was on the defensive.

"It doesn't pretend to offer certainty of happiness on earth. But it tells me there is something in the universe that is higher than I am, more than present pleasure. The Church of Redman offers nothing beyond itself. It's just a set of rules and rituals to make people feel happy and secure, but there's no soul in it."

"But most people are happy, Sarah. Isn't that important?"

"Of course. I know I'm the odd one out. But you are the same, in a way."

"About science? That's true. Everyone I know—including you—seems to be perfectly content with superficial explanations. Cookbook rules that allow a man to repair a television set or a grav-motor are sufficient. No one cares about basic reasons, as long as they know enough to plug one bit into another."

"—and I'm telling you that my view of the Church of Redman is like your view of the repairmen. Just a set of instructions, so you don't have to think about life—follow them, and you'll be all right."

"It's not the same at all, Sarah. The Church offers more . . ."

The argument went on, hot and endless. But little by little, the bridges were growing between them. When at last they went to sleep, entwined again like two silkworms in their passivine cocoon, Carl realized that he had never before been close to another person in his whole life. All his memories were of the schools. With a sudden insight impossible for him a week earlier, he restrained himself from asking too much about Sarah's past.

* * *

"Got him. At last. An aerial patrol spotted two people in the Lukon Pass this afternoon. Who'd have thought anyone would go up there at this time of year? It fits with yesterday's report about the missing school-teacher. She's the reason for Denning's breakout. She's supposed to be a supporter of the Old Religion."

"I've told you before, Jason, we're getting too soft with them. They need discipline. Want me to have Denning picked up?"

"We might as well let the fence do it, and save ourselves an argument. Ask Power Central to take extra care with the antenna attitude at Satellite Control. We don't want the pick-up team or Denning to get landed with a big dose of microwaves."

"What about the damned woman? We can't take her to the Processing Center."

"Don't worry about her, Luis. We'll give her a fright and send her back to Lukon. If she spreads the word that we took Denning, so much the better. We've got to stop our programs being interfered with by a small group of ignorant non-scientists. They are too important for that. I'll handle Sarah Henderson."

* * *

The Pass was finally opening out before them into the north-western valley. Standing at a high point, Carl could see a flat, metallic area far to the north. Sweeping south from it ran a broad, dark-green band where the vegetation looked subtly different. It extended to the southern horizon. The Scar. A scattered group of dark-grey buildings stood on the perimeter of the bright, metallic area. Sarah pointed at them.

"They fit the description. The Processing Center. I don't know what the bright area is."

"I'd like to look at that, too. Let's keep as far south as we can and work in closer to the buildings. That way we can take a look at the Scar at the same time."

Two miles further on they came to the first fence and the warning notice.

'DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT OFFICIAL PASS.' Underneath, in smaller letters, 'Mean microwave intensity 1.0 milliwatts per square centimeter. Check the meters.'

They climbed the fence cautiously and went on, across a long, cleared belt and to a second fence and warning notice.

'NO PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT DURING SATELLITE MAINTENANCE PERIODS. IF THE SIREN SOUNDS, PROCEED AT ONCE TO OUTER PERIMETER. Mean microwave intensity 40.0 milliwatts per square centimeter. Authorized repair staff only.'

Carl motioned to Sarah to let him go on ahead, and swung a leg over the fence. As he did so, he felt the vibration beginning in the metal. He turned to warn her. "No closer, Sarah. I think there may be a current through this."

He stopped. She seemed to be receding and advancing, mouth wide open but making no sound. Carl began to climb back over the fence, but the metal was dissolving in his hands. He looked down at them and fell through the fence and onwards, into and through the ground. As he fell, the air was sucked from his lungs. He tried to turn his head again to look at Sarah, but there was only blackness there; darkness, breathlessness, and a rushing sound that went on and on and on.

When the noise finally stopped, light returned and at once he could breathe again. He turned again to look for Sarah, and froze. The fence had vanished and he was sitting by a big window, looking out over an endless array of grey metal wedges. They went on as far as the eye could see, shining and regular. Bewildered, he turned back and found that he was inside a long, carpeted room. Watching him in silence was a fair-haired man wearing the insignia of the Church of Redman.

After a long pause the man nodded his head to Carl. "Take your time," he said. "Narcogas takes a while. Let me know when you feel up to talking."

Nausea and confusion were competing for Carl's attention. He swallowed bile, straightened in the chair, and narrowed his eyes against the bright inside lights.

"I'm all right," he said after a while. "What happened to Sarah?"

"Don't worry about her. She's fine, and we're looking after her. She'll be on her way back to Lukon in a few hours. The gas protection hit her a lot less hard. You know, you shouldn't have left Lukon without telling anybody."

Carl looked at the metal array outside the window, correlating it with the flat area they had seen from the Lukon Pass. "This is the Processing Center, right? That's where we were trying to get to."

The other man smiled. "Then you succeeded." There was something enormously self-assured in his manner—the impression of a man in complete control of the world. "I expect you have a lot of questions to ask us. Our recruits usually do."

It was all too rational, too open. Carl had been prepared for many things, but not for cheerful confidence and a friendly reception. "What do you mean, recruits? What do you do here? And are you part of the Church, the people who control science teaching?"

"One at a time. You are a recruit. I think you'll like it. It means that you'll be living now among people who can think the same way you can." He smiled. "No more Mr. Nielsen. No more 'great absolute truths.' We aren't part of the Church—the Church is part of us."

"Then what are you?"

"Scientists. Guardians, if you want to call us that. Redman himself was a scientist, you know. He did his basic work on human development by applying science to sociology."

"And this is a school for scientists?"

"Not really. More of a transfer point, but it has many functions. Think of it as our Headquarters for this part of the world. The reason we set it out here is because of that." He pointed to the great array of wedges outside the window. "This is the main receiving and control center for one node of the solar satellite power system. We don't like the receivers too near the cities."

"What do you mean, receivers? What do you receive?"

"Power. Most of the power we use in this area is generated by a big array of photovoltaic cells, hung twenty-two thousand miles up. In space. You've done mechanics, right? That's the distance where an orbiting body rotates at the same rate as the earth, so it can hang always above one point of the surface. You'll see it for yourself, in a few weeks."

In spite of his confusion and worry, Carl was fascinated. "But how can you get power that's generated up there down to earth?"

"It's beamed down as microwave radiation—long wavelength radiation. You know how to solve Maxwell's equations, right? So you know how to compute the energy carried by electromagnetic radiation. It gets received at the antenna there. The array is five kilometers across, and we don't like anyone to get much closer than ten kilometers. Microwave radiation has bad long-term systemic effects on tissue, even at quite low dose rates."

"So power from here runs things back in Briarsford and Lukon?"

"That's right." The fair-haired man looked at Carl shrewdly. "You already knew that the conventional explanations of the electrical power supply wouldn't work, did you? That's a good sign for your future."

"How do you know so much about me—what I know, what I've been taught?"

"We ought to. We've been watching you since you were ten years old. Now, you're ready to start the training that will make you part of the next generation of real scientists—after you've had a few years of instruction at the Lunar Base and in the Libration Point colonies. We've watched you closely. You couldn't really disappear from the system when you ran away from Lukon."

"I didn't run anywhere except here—I just wanted to get some answers." He was thoughtful for a moment. "Was Sarah Henderson part of the plan to trap me here?"

"Don't say you were trapped. You'd have been coming here anyway, at the end of the year."

"But was Sarah part of the arrangement you made?"

"Not at all. We got the shock of our lives when we found you were heading over the Lukon Pass—you were lucky to make it. I'd never heard of Sarah Henderson until a few days ago. She's just a teacher in Lukon, nothing to do with us. You can forget about her—I doubt if she knows even the elements of science."

Carl persisted. "But you are sure she is all right?"

The priest-scientist showed his first sign of impatience. "Of course she is. I told you, we have a responsibility to serve as guardians. We take that very seriously. Sarah Henderson will be returned, safe and well, to her home in Lukon. We'll keep an eye on her for a while—we still don't know how she learned about the existence of the Center here."

As he was speaking, a siren outside began to wail. He looked at his wrist unit and snapped his fingers in annoyance. "I might have known that would happen. They always pick the most inconvenient times for the drills." He shrugged. "I have to go to it. It's top-priority. Thirty years ago, they lost attitude control and the beam swung wild for three weeks. You've seen the result. The center of the beam made the Scar. It fried the ground with microwave radiation. We're still estimating the long-term effects on the ecology."

He stood up, walked over to Carl and handed him a bound report. "Here, take a look at this while I'm away. The control drill will take an hour, maybe two. You'll find in here a few more answers to your questions. See you later."

There was a further moment of concern for Sarah, a momentary sense of loss. Then Carl opened the report and excitement and anticipation blotted out other emotions.

* * *

"A hundred years ago, mankind was in trouble," it began. "The population explosion, anticipated a century earlier as the main problem facing man, had disappeared. Instead, the population was dwindling rapidly. Waves of suicide, indifference, madness and despair swept the human race, and the trends were all downward.

"There was no shortage of supposed explanations, but solutions were lacking until Jahangir Redman, in 2010, began his study of the correlation between fundamental beliefs and human behavior. He found a series of correlation coefficients, that could propagate scientific and religious doctrines forward in time and allow a quantitative effect on behavior patterns to be calculated.

"The projections were grim indeed. The course seemed irreversible, down to oblivion and the collapse of society. A philosopher might have stopped at that point; but Jahangir Redman was an activist. . . ."

Carl read on. Twenty-two thousand miles above his head, the great array of solar panels trimmed its angles like a giant sail to face the full sun. The microwave transmission antenna in the satellite made a series of minute changes in pointing attitude as it responded to the control signals sent up from Power Central. The flow of power continued.

* * *

The worst of the winter was over in Lukon. Spring flowers were braving the March winds, and Sarah had picked a bunch of wild daffodils on her way home from the school, east of the town, where she was teaching. They would brighten the house, and that was badly needed. The months since Carl had been swept away by the Church of Redman had been grim indeed, but at last she was coming through. She walked up the drive, unlocked her front door, went through it—and dropped books and flowers. Carl was sitting in a chair by the fireplace, thin and pale as ever, older in the eyes and the set of his mouth.

The beginning was the physical joy of reunion. Carl was intense and passionate but Sarah could sense the core of sadness and reserve.

"Carl, what did they do to you?" She was holding him tightly by the shoulders, studying his face. "Did they hurt you? I asked about you when I got back, everywhere I thought there might be information. No one had ever seen you or heard of you, ever admitted your existence."

"I know, Sarah. The old Carl Denning doesn't exist. Officially I'm not here today, and I'll have to leave early tomorrow morning. I had to make an excuse to get back here for even one day. I didn't want you to think I was in any trouble, and I didn't want you grieving for me."

"It's two months too late for that wish, Carl. I thought you were dead. Where have you been?"

"Many places. Come and sit by me, Sarah."

They settled together by the fire, in the same position as on their first evening. Carl stared deep into the fire, looking for words there.

"I'm going to break the rules," he began at last. "I'm going to tell you what the Church of Redman does, so you'll believe me when I say that one day I will come back. Not for two years, at least, but I'll be back. Sarah, do you think people you know are happy? Not always, but mostly?"

She gave the question real thought before she answered. "I think they are. You and I may be the exceptions, but most people are content."

He nodded. "That's what I've been hearing. Happiness, for the majority, is the goal of civilization. Worry and grief for a minority are a necessary consequence. That's what Redmanism is all about. You'll have to take a lot of this on faith, because you can't check it, but the key is in the forbidden sciences."

"You found out all about them at the Processing Center?"

"Enough. It all goes back a long way. Up to the end of the nineteenth century, people believed that the world was really knowable—not simple, but at least capable of being fully understood. All science seemed to be completely definite. So people came to think of things that way, and it looked as though science offered certainty. That was the view of the average man, though he never got around to expressing it."

He smiled ruefully, still looking deep into the fire. "That's the way things used to seem to me when I was in school in Briarsford. I didn't know when I was well off."

Sarah was holding his hands in hers, and looking both happy and perplexed. "Are you saying science isn't definite, Carl? We always learned it that way."

"Oh, it's definite in its own way. You see, at the end of the nineteenth century some mysterious things were discovered. Radioactivity—atoms breaking up of their own accord, into smaller particles—was discovered, and there seemed to be no way to tell which atom would be the one to disintegrate. It seemed to happen at random. Then early in the twentieth century things got worse. The basic description of the world was through something called quantum theory, and that was all based on probabilities, not certainties. The uncertainty principle showed that the probabilities were fundamental, and couldn't be removed from the theory. Finally, a few years later a mathematician called Gödel knocked the final nail in. He proved that whole classes of theorems in mathematics are neither provable, nor disprovable—they are undecidable."

He looked at Sarah, who appeared dubious and sceptical. "Do you understand me, Sarah?"

"I understand what you're saying, Carl. I just don't see what it has to do with Redmanism. It doesn't sound like a disaster if things seemed less definite."

"That's what people thought, before Redman. But it takes a long time for ideas that are very abstract to get down to the average man. Maybe three or four generations. By the time they did, the precise way the uncertainty is involved had been lost. People had come to think that nothing was knowable and nothing was really provable. So by the end of the twentieth century, everything was doubted. Not only that, civilization seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Redman proved—mathematically—that it was all cause and effect. He realized that the only solution was to re-introduce certainty into the average man's view of the world. And he set out to do just that."

"Are you saying that the Church of Redman isn't really a church at all?" interrupted Sarah. "I can't believe that. It's the strongest religion in the world, and it's driven the other religions underground."

"It's organized as a religion, Sarah. Redman did it that way to get action on his ideas. He decided that the only way he could operate, without getting involved in revolution or politics, was through a religion. It could spread openly or secretly, across language and geographic barriers."

"And the Priests of Redman—they are really scientists, controlling which science should be taught?"

"That's right. Books dealing with uncertainty and undecidability are banned, and you can only find them inside the Church itself. That's where the real science is done."

"And who controls the scientists themselves?"

Carl was puzzled by the question. "The scientists are the guardians of everyone, Sarah. What other guardians are needed?"

She was shaking her head vehemently. "Carl, I know what you're saying. But there's an old saying that the Church of Redman may have forgotten: power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Are you going to become one of the scientists, yourself?"

"As soon as I've been trained."

"Then you're going to become part of a bad system. Maybe Redman meant well when he set up the Church, but you can never create a good society based on deception. It's been tried before, and it always fails. The trouble is, people won't learn from history. Suppose Redman was just plain wrong. God knows, people have been wrong often enough in the past. Suppose the Dark Ages were some sort of natural event, a natural way of controlling the population?"

Carl shook his head wearily. The reunion with Sarah was so different from what he had hoped. "I've seen Redman's analysis. Too many others have checked it for it to be wrong."

"Even so, didn't you tell me that science doesn't accept the idea of absolute theories—that any theory is in time replaced by a more general one? Maybe there could be other cures."

"It would be a terrible risk, Sarah. You would endanger the whole world."

"Perhaps. Maybe we have to risk a wound and a scar or two sometimes. One thing worries me more than anything. The people who should be looking for other answers are the ones who know Redmanism the best—the scientists. Do you honestly believe they are doing that? They are an elite now, the chosen few. The rest of us are outside the club. Would they want to change to a system where science might not be the top of the line?"

Carl was silent, uncomfortable. Sarah's last words had scored a hit. The feeling of absolute self-confidence that Carl had sensed from the scientists of Redman could be seen, all too easily, as arrogance. The work was fascinating, but the people lacked something he could feel in Sarah.

She easily read his discomfort, and reached to pull his head close to hers. "You are going to be taken by science, Carl. I can see it in your eyes when you speak about it. Science is your true mistress, your only lasting beloved. But I hope you won't forget me, or the rest of us here. When 'first love's impassioned blindness' has faded, look for another answer. Make sure the Priests of Redman share the hardships, and don't have an easier life than the rest of us—otherwise, there will be no search for a different solution."

She put her hand over his mouth before he could reply. "No, love, no debate. If I've got you for just one night, that's short enough without losing any more time."

* * *

When she awoke the next morning he had already gone, slipping quietly away before dawn. On the table where they had shared their first evening meal she found a book, one that Carl had slipped into his pocket before they had started out for their trek over the Lukon Pass. She opened it and read the note tucked inside.

"Dearest Sarah, Thanks for the loan of your book. After you fell asleep last night I did a lot of thinking, and I'm beginning to see what you are saying about the Church of Redman. You probably realize that you have shown me another side of the world—the side you see and live in, different from the scientist's life. I don't know if I could ever live fully in your world, or you in mine. But we can try.

"Did you know that from early childhood I've dreamed of being an astronomer, working with the remote worlds of space? A year ago, that was my whole ambition. It is still my strongest wish, but now I know it is not everything. You brought me to Earth, and I am both glad and sorry to be here.

"I want to say that in another way. The past two months have been busy. I've taken a trip off Earth, around the Moon, up to the big space stations. I can't describe the feeling, hanging there where the sun shines all the time, looking back at Earth and knowing that somewhere on that little ball there was night, Lukon, this house and you.

"Here is one result of the time I did have. Don't judge it too harshly.

Sirius, ice-bound furnace of the winter sky,

Andromeda, remotely giant, spun of silver mist,

Rich realms of light to lure the mind and eye

Away from Earth, to wander. In the abyss

Has intellect, too often, been betrayed

Hiding reflection in reflection's field,

Each glow-worm light a loftier shrine than shade.

No price too high for one clear mote revealed.

Dare I in that retreat scorn Cupid's hold,

Expect his power one world alone to govern?

Rash fool. After the dart, in vain I would

Still blind unknowing, tell the stars of Heaven.

Out of eternal light I hurtle sick to Earth,

New-falling Satan, tasting life and death."

Sarah read the sonnet, then ran her fingers slowly down the first letters, picking out her name. Sarah Henderson. Carl was right. It would never have worked out as Sarah Denning. But he understands, that's the important thing. It's the first crack in the wall, the beginning of a new look at the Church. Two years. What will he have become in two years, what will I be when he returns? He has come more than half-way to my world in two short months. Can I go the other half and meet him in his?

Sarah read Carl's note again. Then she folded it and replaced it in the book. She went to the window, and threw it open. The morning air was mild, and the west wind, warm and moisture-laden, carried in to her the eternal promise of the coming spring.

Afterword.

I had trouble writing this story. The basic premise was sound enough: modern life is so complicated that most of us have trouble knowing who we are or where we're going. Converting that abstract idea to a story was another matter.

Then there was the sonnet. It's not difficult to write an acrostic sonnet, particularly if you're allowed to take liberties with the form (if you look back, you'll find that I purposely chose to use hexameters in the first two lines, instead of pentameters). I wrote it, then I fiddled with it endlessly. It had to be the sort of thing that an eighteen-year-old male would write after some exposure to Dryden, Herrick and Samuel Butler.

Well, just to prove that I don't usually have that much trouble, here is an acrostic sonnet that I wrote last month, very quickly, to respond to Isaac Asimov's request for acrostic sonnets on science fiction themes:

THE TIME MACHINE.

This lever sets the pace. It lets me say

How fast the years must run their backward flight.

Each blink of light, a speeding night or day,

Takes me to worlds long vanished from our sight.

I have a choice. One path that I can take

Makes present future, calls from ages gone

Each vanished dawn. The other branch will make

My children's children old as I look on

And tell me how the human race must die.

Could I endure those sights? Such heavy fears

Have bad effects on me. I guess I'll fly

Into the quiet past, back eighty years.

Now I can make my test, and with one blow

End Grandpa's span. Good Lord! Where did I go?

KILLING VECTOR

Everyone on the Control Stage found a reason to be working aft when Yifter came on board. There was maximum security, of course, so no one could get really close without a good reason. Even so, we all took the best look we could manage—after all, you don't often have a chance to see a man who has killed a billion people.

Bryson, from the Planetary Coordinators' office, was at Yifter's elbow. The two men weren't shackled together, or anything melodramatic like that. Past a certain level of notoriety, criminals are treated with some deference and even respect. Bryson and Yifter were talking together in a friendly way, although they were in the middle of a group of top rank security men, all heavily armed and watchful. They were taking safety to extremes. When I stepped forward to greet Bryson and his prisoner, two guards carefully frisked me before I could get within hand-kill range, and they stood close behind me when the introductions were made. I haven't been on Earth for a long time, and they must have known that I have no close relatives there; but they were taking no chances. Yifter was a prime target for personal revenge. A billion people leave a lot of friends and relatives.

From a distance of one meter, Yifter's appearance did not match his reputation. He was of medium height, slightly built, with bushy, prematurely white hair and mild, sad eyes. He smiled at me in a tired, tolerant way as Bryson introduced us.

"I am sorry, Captain Roker," he said. "Your ship will be filled with strangers on this trip. I'll do my best to keep out of your way and let you do your job."

I hoped he could live up to his words. Since I took over the runs to Titan, I've carried most things in the connected set of cargo spheres that make up the Assembly. Apart from the kernels, and we carry a few of those on the outbound leg of every trip, we've had livestock, mega-crystals, the gravity simulator, and the circus. That's right, the circus. They must have had a terrible agent, that's all I can say. I took them both ways, to Titan and back to L-5. Even with all that, Yifter was still a novelty item. After he had been caught and the rest of the Lucies had gone underground, nobody had known quite what to do with him. He was Earth's hottest property, the natural target for a billion guns and knives. Until they decided how and when he would come to trial, they wanted him a long way from Earth. It was my job to deliver him to the Titan penal colony, and return him when they got themselves sorted out on Earth.

"I'll arrange for you and your guards to travel in a separate part of the Assembly," I said. "I assume that you will prefer privacy."

Yifter nodded agreeably, but Bryson wasn't having any.

"Captain Roker," he said. "Let me remind you that Mr. Yifter has not been found guilty on any charge. On this journey, and until his trial, he will be treated with proper courtesy. I expect you to house both of us here in the Control Stage, and I expect that you will invite us to take our meals here with you."

In principle, I could have told him to go and take a walk outside. As captain, I said who would travel in the Control Stage, and who would eat with me—and innocent people were not usually sent to the Titan penal colony, even before their trial. On the other hand, Bryson was from the Planetary Coordinators' office, and even off-Earth that carried weight.

I suppressed my first reaction and said quietly, "What about the guards?"

"They can travel in the Second Section, right behind the Control Stage," replied Bryson.

I shrugged. If he wanted to make nonsense of Earth's security efforts, that was his choice. Nothing had ever happened on any of my two-month runs from Earth to Titan, and Bryson was probably quite right; nothing would happen this time. On the other hand, it seemed like a damned silly charade, to ship twenty-five guards to keep an eye on Yifter, then house them in a separate part of the Assembly.

Yifter, with an uncanny empathy, had read through my shrug. "Don't worry about security, Captain Roker," he said. He smiled again, that tired, soothing smile that began deep in his sad, brown eyes. "You have my assurance, I will be a model prisoner."

He and Bryson walked on past me, into the main quarters. Was that really Yifter, the bogey-man, the notorious head of the Hallucinogenic Freedom League? It seemed hard to believe. Three months earlier, the Lucies—under Yifter's messianic direction—had planted hallucinogenic drugs in the water supply lines of most of Earth's major cities. An eighth of the world had died in the resulting chaos. Starvation, epidemic, exposure and mindless combat had re-visited the Earth and exacted their age-old tribute. The monster who had conceived, planned and directed that horror was difficult to match with Yifter, the seemingly mild and placid man.

My thoughts were quickly diverted to more immediate practical matters. We had the final masses of all the cargo, and it was time for the final balancing of the whole Assembly. One might assume that means just balancing the kernels correctly, since they out-mass everything else by a factor of a million. But each Section containing a kernel has an independent drive unit, powered by the kernel itself. We leave those on Titan, and travel back light, but on the trip out the dynamic balancing is quite tricky.

I reviewed the final configuration, then looked around for McAndrew. I wanted him to look over the balance calculations. It's my responsibility, but he was the kernel expert. I realized that he hadn't been present when Yifter came aboard. Presumably he was over on one of the other Sections, crooning over his beloved power sources.

I found him in Section Seven. The Assembly is made up of a variable number of Sections, and there would be twelve on this trip, plus the Control Stage. Until we accelerate away from the Libration Colony station, all the Sections are physically connected—with actual cables—to each other and to the Control Stage. In flight, the coupling is done electromagnetically, and the drives for the powered Sections are all controlled by a computer on the Control Stage. The Assembly looks like a small bunch of grapes, but the stalks are non-functional—there are no cables in the System that could take the strains, even at lowest acceleration. Moving among the spherical Sections when we're in flight isn't easy. It means we have to cut the drives, and turn off the coupling between the Sections. That's why I thought the idea of having Yifter's guards in a different Section was so dumb—from there, they couldn't even reach the Control Stage when the drives were on.

I wanted McAndrew to check the configuration that we would hold in flight, to see if he agreed that the stresses were decently balanced among the different Sections. We never run near the limit on any of them, but there's a certain pride of workmanship in getting them all approximately equal, and the stresses as low as possible.

He was standing on the ten-meter shield that surrounded the Section Seven kernel, peering through a long boresight pointed in towards the center. He was aware of my presence but did not move or speak until the observation was complete. Finally he nodded in satisfaction, closed the boresight cap, and turned to me.

"Just checking the optical scalars," he said. "Spun up nicely, this one. So, what can I do for you, Captain?"

I led him outside the second shield before I handed him the trim calculations. I know a kernel shield has never failed, but I'm still not comfortable when I get too close to one. I once asked McAndrew how he felt about working within ten meters of Hell, where you could actually feel the gravity gradient and the inertial dragging. He looked at me with his little introspective smile, and made a sort of throat-clearing noise—the only trace of his ancestry that I could ever find in him.

"Och," he said. "The shields are triply protected. They won't fail."

That would have reassured me, but then he had rubbed his high, balding forehead and added, "And if they do, it won't make any difference if you are ten meters away, or five hundred. That kernel would radiate at about two gigawatts, most of it high-energy gammas."

The trouble was, he always had the facts right. When I first met McAndrew, seven years earlier, we were taking the first shipment of kernels out to Titan. He had showed up with them, and I assumed that he was just another engineer—a good one, maybe, but I expected that. Five minutes of conversation with him told me that he had probably forgotten more about Kerr-Newman black holes—kernels—than I was ever likely to learn. I have degrees in Electrical Engineering and Gravitational Engineering, in my job I have to, but I'm really no gravity specialist. I felt like an idiot after our first talk. I made a few inquiries, and found that McAndrew was a full professor at the Penrose Institute, and probably the System's leading expert on space-time structure.

When we got to know each other better, I asked him why he would give up his job for four months of the year, to ride herd on a bunch of kernels being shipped around the Solar System. It was a milk-run, with lots of time and very little to do. Most people would be bored silly.

"I need it," he said simply. "It's very nice to work with colleagues, but in my line of business the real stuff is mostly worked out alone. And I can do experiments here that wouldn't be allowed back home."

After that, I accepted his way of working, and took vicarious pride in the stream of papers that appeared from McAndrew at the end of each Titan run. He was no trouble on the trips. He spent most of his time in the Sections carrying the kernels, only appearing in the Control Stage for his meals—and frequently missing them. He was a tinkerer as well as a theorist. Isaac Newton was his idol. His work had paid off in higher shielding efficiencies, better energy extraction methods, and more sensitive manipulation of the charged kernels. Each trip, we had something new.

I left the trim calculations with him, and he promised to check them over and give me his comments in an hour or two. I had to move along and check the rest of the cargo.

"By the way," I said, elaborately casual as I turned to go. "We'll be having company for dinner on this trip. Bryson insists that Yifter should eat with us."

He stood quietly for a moment, head slightly bowed. Then he nodded and ran his hand over his sandy, receding hair-line.

"That sounds like Bryson," he said. "Well, I doubt if Yifter will eat any of us for breakfast. I'm not sure he'll be any worse than the rest of you. I'll be there."

I breathed a small sigh of relief, and left him. McAndrew, as I knew from experience, was the Compleat Pacifist. I had wanted to be sure that he could stand the idea of meals with Yifter.

Four hours later, all our checks were complete. I switched on the fields. The dull grey exterior of each Section turned to silver, shattering the sunlight and turning the Assembly to a cluster of brilliants. The cables linking the Sections were still in position, but now they were hanging loose. All stresses had been picked up by the balancing fields. In the Control Stage, I gradually turned on the propulsion units of each powered Section. Plasma was fed through the ergosphere of each kernel, picked up energy, and streamed aft. The relative positions of the Sections, Mossbauer-controlled to within fractions of a micrometer, held steady. We accelerated slowly away from L-5, and began the long spiral of a continuous-impulse orbit to Titan.

My work was just about finished until crossover time. The computers monitored the drive feeds, the accelerations, and all the balance of the Sections. On this trip, we had three units without operating drive units: Section Two, where Yifter's guards were housed, just behind the Control Stage; Section Seven, where McAndrew had taken the kernel out of commission for his usual endless and mysterious experiments; and of course, the Control Stage itself. I had made the mistake of asking McAndrew what experiments he was planning for this trip. He looked at me with his innocent blue eyes and scribbled an answer full of twistor diagrams and spinor notation—knowing damn well that I wouldn't be able to follow it. He didn't like to talk about his work "half-cooked," as he put it.

* * *

I had been more worried than I wanted to admit about dinner on that first ship-evening. I knew we would all be itching to ask Yifter about the Lucies, but there was no easy way to introduce the subject into the conversation. How could we do it? "By the way, I hear that you killed a billion people a few months ago. I wonder if you would like to say a few words on the subject? It would liven up the table-talk at dinner." I could foresee that our conversation might be a little strained.

As it turned out, my worries were unnecessary. The first impression that I'd had of Yifter, a mild and amiable man, strengthened on longer exposure. It was Bryson, during dinner, who caused the first tricky moment.

"Most of Earth's problems are caused by the United Space Federation's influence," he said as the robo-server, always on best form at the beginning of the trip, rolled in the courses. "If it weren't for the USF, there wouldn't be as much discontent and rioting on Earth. It's all relative, living space and living standards, and the USF sets a bad example. We can't compete."

According to Bryson, three million people were causing all the problems for seven billion—eight, before Yifter's handiwork. It was sheer nonsense, and as a USF citizen, I should have been the one to bridle; but it was McAndrew who made a growling noise of disapproval, down in his throat; and it was Yifter, of all people, who sensed the atmosphere quickest, and deftly steered the conversation to another subject.

"I think Earth's worst problems are caused by the power shortage," he said. "That affects everything else. Why doesn't Earth use the kernels for power, the way that the USF does?"

"Too afraid of an accident," replied McAndrew. His irritation evaporated immediately at the mention of his specialty. "If the shields ever failed, you would have a Kerr-Newman black hole sitting there, pumping out a thousand megawatts—mostly as high-energy radiation and fast particles. Worse than that, it would pull in free charge and become electrically neutral. As soon as that happened, there'd be no way to hold it electromagnetically. It would sink down and orbit inside the Earth. We couldn't afford to have that happen."

"But couldn't we use smaller kernels on Earth?" asked Yifter. "They would be less dangerous."

McAndrew shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. The smaller the black hole, the higher the effective temperature and the faster it radiates. You'd be better off with a much more massive black hole. But then you've got the problem of supporting it against Earth's gravity. Even with the best electromagnetic control, anything that massive would sink down into the Earth."

"I suppose it wouldn't help to use a non-rotating, uncharged hole, either," said Yifter. "That might be easier to work with."

"A Schwartzschild hole?" McAndrew looked at him in disgust. "Now, Mr. Yifter, you know better than that." He grew eloquent. "A Schwartzschild hole gives you no control at all. You can't get a hold of it electromagnetically. It just sits there, spewing out energy all over the spectrum, and there's nothing you can do to change it—unless you want to charge it and spin it up, and make it into a kernel. With the kernels, now, you have control."

I tried to interrupt, but McAndrew was just getting warmed up. "A Schwartzschild hole is like a naked flame," he went on. "A caveman's device. A kernel is refined, it's controllable. You can spin it up and store energy, or you can use the ergosphere to pull energy out and spin it down. You can use the charge on it to move it about as you want. It's a real working instrument—not a bit of crudity from the Dark Ages."

I shook my head, and sighed in simulated despair. "McAndrew, you have an unconsummated love affair with those blasted kernels." I turned to Yifter and Bryson, who had watched McAndrew's outburst with some surprise. "He spends all his waking hours spinning those things up and down. All the last trip, he was working the kernels in gravitational focusing experiments. You know, using the fact that a gravity field bends light rays. He insists that one day we won't use lenses for optics—we'll focus light using arrays of kernels."

I made the old joke. "We hardly saw him on that trip. We were convinced that one day he'd get careless with the shields, fall into one of the kernels, and really make a spectacle of himself."

They didn't get it. Yifter and Bryson looked at me blankly, while McAndrew, who'd heard it all ten times before, chuckled. We have the same sense of humor—a bad joke is always funny, even if it's the hundredth time you've heard it told.

It's a strange thing, but after the first half-hour I had stopped thinking of Yifter as our prisoner. I could understand now why Bryson had objected to the idea of surrounding Yifter with armed guards. I'd have objected myself. He seemed the most civilized man in the group, with a warm personality and a very dry and subtle sense of humor.

When Bryson left the table, pleading a long day and a lack of familiarity with a space environment, Yifter, McAndrew and I stayed on, chatting about the previous trips I had made to Titan. I mentioned the time I had taken the circus.

"Do you know, I'd never seen most of those animals before," I said. "They were all on the list of endangered species. I don't think you could find them on Earth any more, except in a circus or a zoo."

There was a moment of silence, then Yifter spoke. His eyes were mild and smiling, and his voice sounded dreamy and distant.

"Endangered species," he said. "That's the heart of it. Earth has no room for failures. The weaker species, like weaker specimens of a species, must be eliminated. Only the strong—the mentally strong—may survive. The weak must be culled, for our own sake; whether that means one tenth, one half, or nine tenths of the total."

There was a chilling pause. I looked at Yifter, whose expression had not changed, then at McAndrew, whose face reflected the horror that I was feeling. Yet behind all that, I could feel the unique power of the man. My mind was rejecting him, but I still had a sense of well-being, of warmth in the pit of my stomach, as he was speaking.

"We have made a beginning," went on Yifter quietly. "Just a beginning. Last time we were less successful than I had hoped. We had a breakdown in the distribution system for the drugs. I managed to eliminate the responsible individuals, but it was too late to correct the problem. Next time, God willing, it will be different."

He rose to his feet, white hair shining like silver, face beatific. "Good night, Captain. Good night, Professor McAndrew. Sleep well."

After he had left, McAndrew and I sat and looked at each other for a long time. Finally, he broke the spell.

"Now we know, Captain. We should have guessed it from the beginning. Mad as a hatter. The man's a raving lunatic. Completely psychotic."

That said most of it. McAndrew had used up all the good phrases. I nodded.

"But did you feel the strength in him?" went on McAndrew. "Like a big magnet."

I was glad that the penal colony was so far from Earth, and the avenues of communication so well-guarded. "Next time . . . it will be different." Our two-month trip suddenly seemed to have doubled in length.

* * *

After that single, chilling moment, there were no more shocks for some time. Our regular meal-time conversations continued, and on several occasions McAndrew voiced views on pacifism and the protection of human life. Each time, I waited for Yifter's reply, expecting the worst. He never actually agreed with Mac—but he did not come out with any statement that resembled his comments of the first ship-evening.

We soon settled into the ship-board routine. McAndrew spent less and less time in the Control Stage, and more in Section Seven. On this trip, he brought a new set of equipment for his experiments, and I was very curious to know what he was up to. He wouldn't tell. I had only one clue. Section Seven was drawing enormous energy from the other kernels, in the rest of the Assembly. That energy could only be going to one place—into the kernel in Section Seven. I suspected that McAndrew must be spinning it up—making it closer to an "extreme" kernel, a Kerr-Newman black hole where the rotation energy matches the mass energy. I knew that couldn't be the whole story. McAndrew had spun up the kernels before, and he had told me that there was no direct way of getting a really extreme kernel—that would take an infinite amount of energy. This time, he was doing something different. He insisted that Section Seven had to be off-limits to everybody.

I couldn't get him to talk about it. There would be a couple of seconds of silence from him, then he would stand there, cracking his finger joints as though he was snapping out a coded message to me. He could be a real sphinx when he chose.

Two weeks from Earth, we were drawing clear of the main Asteroid Belt. I had just about concluded that my worries for the trip were over, when the radar reported another ship, closing slowly with us from astern. Its spectral signature identified it as the Lesotho, a cruise liner that usually ran trajectories in the Inner System. It was broadcasting a Mayday, and flying free under zero drive power.

I thought about it for a moment, then posted Emergency Stations throughout the Assembly. The computed trajectory showed that we would match velocities at a separation of three kilometers. That was incredibly close, far too close to be accidental. After closest approach, we would pull away again—we were still under power, accelerating outward, and would leave the Lesotho behind.

I was still watching the displays, trying to decide whether or not to take the next step—shutting off the drives—when Bryson appeared, with Yifter just behind him.

"Captain Roker," he said, in his usual imperious manner. "That's an Earth ship there, giving you a distress signal. Why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"If we waited just a few minutes," I said. "We'll be within spitting distance of her. I see no point in rushing in, until we've had a good look at her. I can't think what an Inner System ship would be doing, free-falling out here beyond the Belt."

That didn't cool him. "Can't you recognize an emergency when you see one?" he said. "If you won't do something productive with your people, I'll do something with mine."

I wondered what he wanted me to do, but he walked away from me without saying anything more, down the stairs that led to the rear communication area of the Control Stage. I turned back to the displays. The Lesotho was closing on us steadily, and now I could see that her locks were open. I cut our propulsion to zero and switched off all the drives. The other ship was tumbling slowly, drive lifeless and aft nacelles crumpled. Even from this distance, I could see that she would need extensive repairs before she could function again.

I was beginning to think that I had been overcautious when two things happened. Yifter's guards, who had been housed behind the Control Stage in Section Two, began to float into view on the viewing screen that pointed towards the Lesotho. They were all in space armor and heavily weaponed. At the same time two suited figures appeared in the open forward lock of the other vessel. I cut in the suit frequencies on our main board.

"—shield failure," said the receiver. "Twenty-seven survivors, and bad injuries. We must have painkillers, medical help, water, food, oxygen and powerpacks."

With that, one group of our guards outside began to move towards the two suited figures in the Lesotho's lock, while the remainder stayed close to the Assembly, looking across at the other ship. Subconsciously, I noted the number of our guards in each party, then gave them my full attention and did a rapid re-count. Twenty-five. All our guards. I swore and cut in the transmitter.

"Sergeant, get half of those men back inside the Assembly shields. This is Captain Roker. I'm overriding any other orders you may have received. Get the nearer party—"

I was interrupted. The display screen flashed blue-white, then over-loaded. The whole Control Stage rang like a great bell, as something slapped hard on the outer shield. I knew what it was: a huge pulse of hard radiation and highly energetic particles, smashing into us in a fraction of a microsecond.

Yifter had been floating within a couple of meters of me, watching the screens. He put his hand to the wall to orient himself as the Control Stage vibrated violently. "What was that?"

"Thermonuclear explosion," I said shortly. "Hundred megaton plus. On the Lesotho."

All the screens on that side were dead. I activated the standby system. The Lesotho had vanished. The guards had vanished with it, vaporized instantly. All the cables linking the parts of the Assembly, all the scanners and sensors that were not protected behind the shields, were gone. The Sections themselves were intact, but their coupling fields would have to be completely recalibrated. We wouldn't be arriving at Titan on schedule.

I looked again at Yifter. His face was now calm and thoughtful. He seemed to be waiting, listening expectantly. For what? If the Lesotho had been a suicide mission, manned by volunteers who sought revenge on Yifter, they hadn't had a chance. They couldn't destroy the Assembly, or get at Yifter. If revenge were not the purpose, what was the purpose?

I ran through in my mind the events of the past hour. With the drives switched off in the Assembly, we had an unprotected blind spot, dead astern. We had been putting all our attention on the Lesotho. Now, with the guards all dead, the Control Stage was undefended.

It was quicker to go aft and take a look, than to call Bryson or McAndrew and ask them what they could see from the rear viewing screens of the Control Stage. Leaving Yifter, I dived head-first down the stairway—a risky maneuver if there were any chance that the drive might come back on, but I was sure it couldn't.

It took me about thirty seconds to travel the length of the Control Stage. By the time that I was half-way, I knew I had been thinking much too slowly. I heard the clang of a lock, a shout, and the sputtering crackle of a hand laser against solid metal. When I got to the rear compartment, it was all finished. Bryson, pale and open-mouthed, was floating against one wall. He seemed unhurt. McAndrew had fared less well. He was ten meters further along, curled into a fetal ball. Floating near him I saw a family of four stubby pink worms with red-brown heads, still unclenching with muscle spasm. I could also see the deep burn on his side and chest, and his right hand, from which a laser had neatly clipped the fingers and cauterized the wound instantly as it did so. At the far end of the room, braced against the wall, were five suited figures, all well-armed.

Heroics would serve no purpose. I spread my arms wide to show that I was not carrying a weapon, and one of the newcomers pushed off from the wall and floated past me, heading towards the front of the Control Stage. I moved over to McAndrew and inspected his wounds. They looked bad, but not fatal. Fortunately, laser wounds are very clean. I could see that we would have problems with his lung unless we treated him quickly. A lobe had been penetrated, and his breathing was slowly breaking the seal of crisped tissue that the laser had made. Blood was beginning to well through and stain his clothing.

McAndrew's forehead was beaded with sweat. As the shock of his wound wore off, the pain was beginning. I pointed to the medical belt of one of the invaders, who nodded and tossed an ampoule across to me. I injected McAndrew intravenously at the big vein inside his right elbow.

The figure who had pushed past me was returning, followed by Yifter. The face plate of the suit was now open, revealing a dark-haired woman in her early thirties. She looked casually at the scene, nodded at last, and turned back to Yifter.

"Everything's under control here," she said. "But we'll have to take a Section from the Assembly. The ship we were following in caught some of the blast from the Lesotho, and it's no good for powered flight now."

Yifter shook his head reprovingly. "Impatient as usual, Akhtar. I'll bet you were just too eager to get here. You must learn patience if you are to be of maximum value to us, my dear. Where did you leave the main group?"

"A few hours' drive inward from here. We have waited for your rescue, before making any plans for the next phase."

Yifter, calm as ever, nodded approvingly. "The right decision. We can take a Section without difficulty. Most of them contain their own drives, but some are less effective than others."

He turned to me, smiling gently. "Captain Roker, which Section is the best equipped to carry us away from the Assembly? As you see, it is time for us to leave you and rejoin our colleagues."

His calm was worse than any number of threats. I floated next to McAndrew, trying to think of some way that we could delay or impede the Lucies' escape. It might take days for a rescue party to reach us. In that time, Yifter and his followers could be anywhere.

I hesitated. Yifter waited. "Come now," he said at last. "I'm sure you are as eager as I am to avoid any further annoyance"—he moved his hand, just a little, to indicate McAndrew and Bryson—"for your friends."

I shrugged. All the Sections contained emergency life-support systems, more than enough for a trip of a few hours. Section Two, where the guards had been housed, lacked a full, independent drive unit, but it was still capable of propulsion. I thought it might slow their escape enough for us somehow to track it.

"Section Two should be adequate," I said. "It housed your guards in comfort. Those poor devils certainly have no need for it now."

I paused. Beside me, McAndrew was painfully straightening from his contorted position. The drugs were beginning to work. He coughed, and red globules floated away across the room. That lung needed attention.

"No," he said faintly. "Not Two, Yifter. Seven. Section Seven."

He paused and coughed again, while I looked at him in surprise.

"Seven," he said at last. He looked at me. "No killing, Captain. No—Killing vector."

The woman was listening closely. She regarded both of us suspiciously. "What was that all about?"

My mouth was gaping open as wide as Bryson's. I had caught an idea of what McAndrew was trying to tell me, but I didn't want to say it. Fortunately, I was helped out by Yifter himself.

"No killing," he said. "My dear, you have to understand that Professor McAndrew is a devoted pacifist—and carrying his principles through admirably. He doesn't want to see any further killing. I think I can agree with that—for the present."

He looked at me and shook his head. "I won't inquire what dangers and drawbacks Section Two might contain, Captain—though I do seem to recall that it lacks a decent drive unit. I think we'll follow the Professor's advice and take Section Seven. Akhtar is a very competent engineer, and I'm sure she'll have no trouble coupling the drive to the kernel."

He looked at us with a strange expression. If it didn't sound so peculiar, I'd describe it as wistful. "I shall miss our conversations," he said. "But I must say goodbye now. I hope that Professor McAndrew will recover. He is one of the strong—unless he allows himself to be killed by his unfortunate pacifist fancies. We may not meet again, but I am sure that you will be hearing about us in the next few months."

They left. McAndrew, Bryson and I watched the screens in silence, as the Lucies made their way over to Section Seven and entered it. Once they were inside, I went over to McAndrew and took him by the left arm.

"Come on," I said. "We have to get a patch on that lung."

He shook his head weakly. "Not yet. It can wait a few minutes. After that, it might not be necessary."

His forehead was beading with sweat again—and this time it was not from pain. I felt my own tension mounting steadily. We stayed by the display screen, and as the seconds ticked away my own forehead began to film with perspiration. We did not speak. I had one question, but I was terribly afraid of the answer I might get. I think that Bryson spoke to both of us several times. I have no idea what he said.

Finally, a pale nimbus grew at the rear of the Section Seven drive unit.

"Now," said McAndrew. "He's going to tap the kernel."

I stopped breathing. There was a pause of a few seconds, stretching to infinity, then the image on the screen rippled slightly. Suddenly, we could see stars shining through that area. Section Seven was gone, vanished, with no sign that it had ever existed.

McAndrew took in a long, pained breath, wincing as his injured lung expanded. Somehow, he managed a little smile.

"Well now," he said. "That answers a theoretical question that I've had on my mind for some time."

I could breathe again, too. "I didn't know what was going to happen there," I said. "I was afraid all the energy might come out of that kernel in one go."

McAndrew nodded. "To be honest, that thought was in my head, too. At this range, the shields would have been useless. We'd have gone like last year's lovers."

Bryson had been watching the whole thing in confusion. We had been ignoring him completely. At last, pale and irritable, he spoke to us again.

"What are you two talking about? And what's happened to the Section with Yifter in it? I was watching on the screen, then it just seemed to disappear."

"McAndrew tried to tell us earlier," I said. "But he didn't want the Lucies to know what he was getting at. He'd been fiddling with the kernel in that Section. You heard what he said—no Killing vector. I don't know what he did, but he fixed it so that the kernel in Section Seven had no Killing vector."

"I'm sure he did," said Bryson tartly. "Now perhaps you'll tell me what a Killing vector is."

"Well, Mac could tell you a lot better than I can. But a Killing vector is a standard sort of thing in relativity—I guess you never had any training in that. You get a Killing vector when a region of space-time has some sort of symmetry—say, about an axis of spin. And every sort of black hole, every sort of kernel we've ever encountered before, has at least one symmetry of that type. So if McAndrew had changed the kernel and made it into something with no Killing vector, it's like no kernel we've ever seen. Right, Mac?"

He looked dreamy. The drugs had taken hold. "I took it past the extreme Kerr-Newman form," he said. "Put it into a different form, metastable equilibrium. Event horizon had disappeared, all the Killing vectors had disappeared."

"Christ!" I hadn't expected that. "No event horizon? Doesn't that mean that you get—?"

McAndrew was still nodding, eye pupils dilated. "—a naked singularity. That's right, Captain. I had a naked singularity, sitting there in equilibrium in Section Seven. You don't get there by spinning-up—needs different method." His speech was slurring, as though his tongue was swollen. "Didn't know what would happen if somebody tried to tap it, to use for a drive. Either the signature of space-time there would change, from three space dimensions and one time, to two space and two time. Or we might see the System's biggest explosion. All the mass coming out as radiation, in one flash."

It was slowly dawning on Bryson what we were saying. "But just where is Yifter now?" he asked.

"Gone a long way," I said. "Right out of this universe."

"And he can't be brought back?" asked Bryson.

"I hope not." I'd seen more than enough of Yifter.

"But I'm supposed to deliver him safely to Titan," said Bryson. "I'm responsible for his safe passage. What am I going to tell the Planetary Coordinators?"

I didn't have too much sympathy. I was too busy looking at McAndrew's wounds. The fingers could be re-generated using the bio-feedback equipment on Titan, but the lung would need watching. It was still bleeding a little.

"Tell them you had a very singular experience," I said. McAndrew grunted as I probed the deep cut in his side. "Sorry, Mac. Have to do it. You know, you've ruined your reputation forever as far as I'm concerned. I thought you were a pacifist? All that preaching at us, then you send Yifter and his lot all the way to Hell—and good riddance to them."

McAndrew was drifting far away on his big dose of painkillers. He half-winked at me and made his curious throat-clearing noise.

"Och, I'm a pacifist all right. We pacifists have to look after each other. How could we ever hope for peace with people like Yifter around to stir up trouble? There's a bunch more of them, a few hours travel behind us. Fix me up quick. I should be tinkering with the other kernels a bit, just in case the other Lucies decide to pay us a visit, later . . ."

Afterword.

When a friend of mine saw the title, "Killing Vector," he said, "I assume that Vector is a person?" I don't know about Vector, but Killing was certainly a person—Wilhelm Killing, a nineteenth century German mathematician after whom Killing fields and Killing vectors are named.

The most frequent complaint I have had about this story is that it is unintelligible. My reply is that it's simply ahead of its time. To my knowledge, it's the only story yet published that provides a description of black holes consistent with present (1979) theories. The modern picture began to emerge in 1974, from Hawking's work at the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge.

Here are a few miscellaneous facts that relate to the story:

Optical scalars (expansion, rotation and shear, as introduced into general relativity by Sachs and Robinson) are affected by the spin of a rotating black hole, as McAndrew said.

It is not possible to "spin up" a Kerr-Newman black hole past a limiting value of the spin—the limit is termed an "extreme" black hole.

Spinors were solidly introduced into general relativity in 1960 by Roger Penrose, who also invented twistors. He may have an Institute named after him when the story takes place, but at the moment he is alive and well, and holds the position of Rouse-Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University.

You can extract energy from a rotating black hole, at least in principle, by passing particles through its ergosphere.

As McAndrew complained, a Schwarzschild black hole, which is uncharged, can't be moved around easily. A charged, spinning black hole (i.e. a kernel) can be moved about with ordinary electromagnetic control. Now all we have to do is find one.

DINSDALE DISSENTS

Yes, what Waldo told you is quite true. He did get an award for his efforts on the Venus terra-forming project, and his medal is genuine. Been boasting again, has he? I'll bet he didn't mention that the President of the United Space Federation opposed the award. Or that it was touch and go whether he got a reward or a life sentence.

No, the President's view had nothing to do with politics. It was a good deal more personal than that.

Let's start at the trial—that's where I got involved. Waldo and I have been friends and partners since law school. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard he'd been arrested for drug smuggling. Taliza's the worst drug on the list, the pusher's dream. Total addiction after one snort. And Waldo disapproves even of tobacco. It was so out of character that I was sure he must be innocent.

The drug ring had been extracting pure taliza from the plants, then putting it into metal powder compacts and shipping them all over Earth. Waldo had handled all the shipping and customs details. He made no attempt to deny it. He said he'd been approached, out of the blue, by a group who wanted to use his experience in international work. That seemed reasonable, because he'd worked for years in the international market. But there were snags.

"You say you believed," said the prosecuting counsel, "that somebody would pay you ten thousand credits a month, just to make shipping arrangements for a lot of cheap brass compacts? Isn't that much higher than your usual rates, Mr. Burmeister?"

Waldo hummed and hawed. He didn't have a good answer. If you ask me, he had suspected from the start that something shady was going on. I think he may even have guessed at smuggling—but gold, not drugs. As I say, Waldo has certain standards of honor.

I became increasingly uneasy as the prosecutor kept coming back to Waldo's 'refusal' to name the original source of the drug, or the other members of the ring. Waldo swore that he'd received no information except for the shipping details and knew nothing of any other people involved. It was a stand-off, but I could sense the jury tilting the wrong way. Innocence through ignorance is never a strong defense, and they could tell that it was contrary to Waldo's natural ego. The judge's summing-up, in which Waldo was painted as the leader of a desperate band of heartless villains, didn't help a bit.

The jury was out less than ten minutes. Guilty. Waldo, protesting his innocence, was sentenced to serve three years on Venus Station. I promised to write.

* * *

It's amazing how many people think, as I did, that the Venus terra-forming project is on Venus; actually that won't come for another three hundred years. All the work is done in orbit at Venus Station, seven hundred kilometers above the planet. The Station looks like two big wheels, four hundred meters across, on a common axle. I'd seen pictures of it, but that was all I knew until Waldo described it. The upper wheel, Station Up, spins—you get about one gee at the outer rim. It has all the hydroponics, air equipment and recycling equipment—and all the convicts. The lower wheel doesn't rotate. It's Station Down, and it acts as the docking facility and houses the algal seeders.

Waldo arrived at Station Down after a boring two-month flight from Earth, along with twenty other prisoners. I gather he was not impressed by his companions. They ranged from a mad bomber who had blown up the store that sold him a defective umbrella, to an illiterate janitor who had done in his wife when she refused to read stories to him. What annoyed Waldo was the way the rest of them looked down on him, as an unspeakable drug-master, destroyer of the young, perverter of the innocent. That, plus the fact that the bunks on the ship were designed for someone half his girth, made his life miserable. It shows how strange the world can be. A few months earlier, Waldo would have taken bets that he could never be glad to arrive at Venus Station to serve a prison sentence. But he saw Station Down swing into view with a great sense of relief.

After they docked he was taken to the Prison Admissions Office on Station Up. The work assignment supervisor there had a summary of Waldo's background, with the test results. He looked at them and shook his head.

"The only position I've got for you right now is as a Number Three Vatman, on the lower hydroponics level. One good thing about that, you'll have a gravity close to what you were used to on Earth. And it's a very important job; we all depend on the hydroponics."

Waldo frowned. It sounded as though it might be manual labor. He'd hoped for an administrative position—perhaps even a legal post.

"This vatman job. It doesn't sound as though it will make use of my skills. I'm sure I have the qualifications to fill a management slot for you here. Don't you have at least a clerical assignment available?"

"Not for your background." The supervisor looked sadly at Waldo's papers. "You have to understand, Mr. Burmeister, there's no shortage of lawyers in the prison. We have enough of you to fill all our clerical needs three times over. If you'd been a trained plumber now, or an electrician, that would be a different matter. You should find this job rewarding," he added, seeing Waldo's expression. "Recycling is a very important function. You'll have full control of all the stirring, filtering and additive operations on the Number Three vat line."

It was manual work all right. Waldo didn't like the sound of it at all.

"But what's in the vats?" he asked. "Just what is it you are recycling?"

The supervisor told him. Waldo liked the sound of it even less. He made one more try. "Look, there must be some other jobs open here. Surely all the prisoners don't have useful trades. There must be jobs here on the Station that don't correspond to anything back on Earth."

"Oh yes, there are. There's one vacancy right now for a scout ship operator. A very responsible position. They fly down into the atmosphere of Venus every day, and monitor the level that the algae reach before they become too hot to function. Unfortunately, that job has a weight limit." He looked at Waldo's bulk with misgiving. "You don't look less than ninety kilos, I'm afraid, so I didn't mention it to you."

Thank heaven for fat. Waldo mentally hugged his poundage to him. The last job he wanted was to be plunged into Venus' searing atmosphere as a sort of human dip stick. He should have kept his mouth shut.

"I'll keep your interest in the scout work in mind," the supervisor said encouragingly. "And don't worry about the vat work. I'm told that the smell is just a temporary problem. There's been something wrong with the chemical balance on the lowest level of tanks. Don't forget, in a year or so you'll be eligible for reassignment. I'll mark your interest in scouting down on your form here but I'm sure you'll soon settle in and make friends on the hydroponics work."

* * *

Curiously enough, the supervisor's optimistic prediction seemed to be right. The chief of the hydroponics area was a big bruiser named Katuki, who for some reason seemed delighted to see Waldo. He shook hands with enthusiasm and slapped him on the back.

"Hey, I'm really pleased to meet you, Mr. Burmeister. I've heard about you, but I didn't know you were going to be working down here. I thought it was impossible to rig the computers that assign people to different jobs. Sometime I'd like you to tell me how you worked it." Waldo smiled modestly.

"It's good to get a bit of class in the place," Katuki went on. "The other fellers are good guys, but I don't mind telling you some of them aren't the brightest. Stop by my area as soon as you're settled in, and I'll introduce you to the other vatmen."

Waldo was gratified. It was nice to be appreciated, even if the speaker's appearance was a little off-putting. At some time in the past Katuki's face seemed to have lost a major argument with something hard and irregular.

Waldo felt even more pleased later, when Katuki introduced him to the other four vatmen with a big build-up. No one had praised his brains so much for years. It's all relative, I suppose. A couple of others, according to Waldo, would have been hard pressed to decide which end of a stirring paddle to hold without guidance from Katuki.

Glasses and a bottle were produced from a locker and Katuki poured generous shots of a dark brown liquid. "Here's to our new buddy, Waldo Burmeister," he said, handing them around. "I know he's going to be a real help to the operation here."

Waldo hesitated, glass in hand, and looked at the door. "I'm sure you know best, but isn't this a bit risky? What about the guards?"

"Down here? You couldn't get a guard to the hydroponics levels unless you bribed him." Katuki thought for a moment. "I don't think I've seen one on this level for three months. Provided everything runs smoothly here, we're left to ourselves. Here's to you."

Waldo lifted his glass, expecting the worst, and gulped it down. He'd thought it would be near-beer, or rot-gut. It turned out to be high-proof, top quality bourbon. The others grinned at his obvious surprise.

"Not bad, eh, Waldo?" said Katuki. "I tell you, we do all right for ourselves down here. Know how we do it?"

Waldo accepted a second glass and thought for a moment. Obviously, they'd found a way to make or smuggle good booze. He didn't want to get involved in what might be a risky operation. On the other hand, he certainly didn't want to be cut off from the supply. This needed a careful answer.

"Mr. Katuki, when a lawyer is asked if he was given a piece of information, he's legally obliged to answer, yes or no. But he can't be asked what he or somebody else was thinking. So to answer your question, I'd rather not be told where the drink comes from."

There was a baffled silence for a few seconds as the gears ground inside Katuki's bullet head. Then his face lit up. "Hey, I like that." He turned to the others. "See how to do it. No talk, no chance to get caught out." Then to Waldo. "You'll get the picture for yourself soon enough, when we look around the works tomorrow."

The next day wasn't so good. Despite Katuki's pride in the set-up, the three hydroponics levels were a bit stark. They began with the algae breeding tanks on the third level, where the big vats were cultured for the seeders.

"We pipe 'em to Station Down as soon as they're ready," explained Katuki. "Then the seeders spray the algae out into the upper atmosphere. They convert carbon dioxide to oxygen as they fall, and die when it gets too hot for them. Each time we go over the same spot on the ground, the algae get a bit lower before they're crisped. It's already a couple of degrees cooler down on the surface than it was when the project started."

Waldo suppressed a yawn. Technology bored him. They went down a staircase to the second level and then along a corridor that led to the second level hydroponics tanks. Katuki had got a little more jumpy, excited about something. He kept glancing at Waldo as though in anticipation.

"Don't ever touch that red lever on the wall unless I tell you," he warned as they came halfway along the corridor. "It opens up a section of the floor, so we can dump chemicals into the channel on the first level."

"What's in the channel?"

"Partly treated sewage, on its way through the lowest level hydroponics tanks. You wouldn't drown if you fell down there—it's only waist-deep. I don't think you'd enjoy it, though."

They walked on, Waldo treading very gingerly as they went over the trapdoor section of the corridor. Just before the staircase to the lowest level Katuki stopped and looked into a small room on the left. It was filled with long spirals of silver coils, winding halfway to the ceiling. It looked curiously familiar. As they came down the staircase and out to the lowest level hydroponics, Waldo had a sudden insight.

A still. That's what those metal coils had to be, and that's where the liquor was coming from. As they walked past the fronded, blue-green plants of the long hydroponics tank he noticed that Katuki was looking at him with a sly, expectant air. Waldo winked and Katuki grinned back at him.

"We don't need to talk about it, right, Waldo?" he said. "A wink's as good as a nod to a blind horse."

They moved out along the first level catwalk, with the big hydroponics tank on their left. A broad stream of grey-green sewage, with beaded bubbles winking at the brim, moved sluggishly past on the right. Katuki noticed Waldo's expression and grinned again.

"That's where you finish up if you fall through the second level trapdoor. Don't make any enemies among the other vatmen, Waldo."

Waldo looked again at the steaming mess and shuddered. His appetite for dinner dropped a notch.

After a month he had the working routine mastered, but his taste for the job didn't increase. As far as Waldo was concerned, a vatman's lot was not a happy one. Apart from Katuki, the vatmen were near-morons and a grunt passed for sparkling conversation. What with filtering, stirring, removing sludge and adding chemicals, Waldo had lost ten kilos and was beginning to regard a human being as no more than an instrument for recycling sewage. That was a pity, because the vatmen under Katuki's direction dined—and wined—amazingly well. The third level of tanks were dedicated to producing algae for the seeders, and the lowest level next to the bottom sewage channel was used for oxygen production. But part of the tank on the second level had been set up as a kitchen garden and produced excellent vegetables.

There was not much real meat. Waldo could see no way round that, except maybe cannibalism. As he got to know Katuki better that seemed less improbable. Behind the tough battered face lay an even tougher inside. The crews did just what he told them, with no arguments and no discussion. Waldo followed the same approach himself. His work was mainly on the lowest level tank, where Katuki seemed to think he was exceptionally reliable. It wasn't easy. Katuki had been so impressed by Waldo's remark on the virtues of silent accord that his instructions had become almost unintelligible, delivered through isolated words and a series of nods, grunts and winks. But since he clearly continued to regard Waldo with special esteem, everything must have been going well. And as Katuki had said, the guards much preferred the upper levels of Station Up, where the gravity and the sewage were less noticeable. Waldo hadn't seen one down on the lowest levels since his arrival, and his fears regarding the condensing coils of the still off the second level corridor had greatly eased.

You have to remember that I'm reporting Waldo's version of events, plus a few things that came out after the visit of the Space Federation VIP's to Venus Station. So it's very possible that Waldo was not quite the popular, respected figure that he describes. Be that as it may, one day Katuki came rushing down to Waldo's room for advice and assistance. He was so worried that his speech had become quite normal.

"Waldo, we got a bad problem coming up," he said. "Next week's the tenth anniversary of the terra-forming project. President Dinsdale and a whole bunch of VIP's are coming here for a big ceremony in Station Down—special algal spraying, banquet, everything. Trouble is, they'll be coming to Station Up as well, to give us a big inspection."

It was nice to receive Katuki's comments in words rather than in mime. Waldo could see no reason for the big panic, though.

"Don't worry about it, Katuki. He's not called Dandy Dinsdale for nothing, you know. I've seen him before. He wears thousand-credit suits and he changes his clothes five times a day. He has his own barber and his own manicurist. He can't stand dirt or filth in any form—it's a mania with him. I'm telling you, you'll never get Dinsdale within six levels of the vat areas."

"Waldo, he don't know what it's like here. He asked to see everything, and that dumb superintendent took him at his word. Rusty up in the guard block showed me the tour plan and it includes all our levels." Katuki paced up and down Waldo's room, two steps each way, then hammered his fist on the steel bulkhead. "Damn it, Waldo, what use is a prison if you can't keep the wrong people out of it?"

While Katuki was talking, Waldo's stomach had moved steadily up his throat and was now pushing at the roof of his mouth. That damned still! It would be the ruin of all of them. Why had he been fool enough to let a few bottles of liquor get him mixed up in another illegal deal? Why hadn't he stayed out or blown the whistle?

Because he'd heard Katuki's views on the way you deal with squealers and double-crossers, that's why. Waldo had the feeling that he'd been predestined for this set-up, ever since the judge had said the words Venus Station. Katuki was still airing his woes. "They want me to go over to Station Down and explain the way we feed the algal seeders. That means I can't be here to steer the tour the way I'd like to. I'll rush back over here as soon as I can, but I can't rely on one of those other dummies to show Dinsdale and the other brass round here. Christ, can you imagine Blattwitz or Grapelli leading the tour? It's taken me two years to teach those two to wash up before they come through for dinner. Waldo, it has to be you. You'll have to make sure the visitors only see what we want them to see. You'll do it, right?"

Waldo began to appreciate the narrowness of the beach between the devil and the deep blue sea. He was stuck with it.

"Right." He thought of the old advice to the woman being raped: relax.

"Then I'll make sure we have tour signs put up, to make it as easy for you as we can," Katuki went on. "People always follow arrows, even off a cliff. That's where I'd like to send that pansy Dinsdale. Damned troublemaker, why wouldn't he settle for a banquet like anybody else?"

Katuki had real venom in his tone. Waldo realized that Katuki's dislike of President Dinsdale went well beyond a difference of political opinions.

* * *

They spent most of the next few days scrubbing everything in sight, preparing for the big tour. When President Dinsdale finally appeared on the third hydroponics level, however, surrounded by a retinue of VIP's, it was clear that the cleaning efforts hadn't been sufficient. Waldo's predictions had been on the mark. Dinsdale, impeccably dressed and coiffured, was holding a fine silk handkerchief close to his nose, and his expression left no doubt as to his feelings. The superintendent handed the tour over to Waldo with obvious relief. Dinsdale's great disdain had penetrated even the superintendent's bovine brain. As they walked along the third level, Waldo babbled anything that happened to come into his head. He was preparing himself for the detour that would have to be made down on the second level, to by-pass the still.

Fortunately, President Dinsdale showed no interest in anything at all beyond his handkerchief. A couple of the others, though, were looking about them keenly and seemed to understand what they were seeing. Waldo led them nervously to the second level staircase, following the arrows that Katuki had set out.

As they came out into the second level corridor Waldo stopped, unable to believe his eyes. Instead of diverting them down to the lowest level, the arrows were pointing along the corridor, straight past the still.

The group was passing Waldo, blindly following the arrows, before he could get his brain working. They had reached the trapdoor and in two more seconds would be able to see the still.

At that precise moment, Waldo had a sudden flash of total insight, an apocalyptic vision of truth. Katuki, in his hatred of President Dinsdale, didn't care whether they saw the still or not. He was planning to kidnap Dinsdale and hold the party hostages. Why else would he let the secret of the still be revealed?

In moments of great stress, the body moves faster than the brain. While Waldo was still dithering mentally, his legs moved him over to the corridor wall. His hands, unprompted, pulled the red lever. The trapdoor swung open, and President Dinsdale and his entourage disappeared with a chorus of screams.

Waldo advanced to the edge of the pit, unsure what to do next. His sudden vision of absolute truth hadn't given him a follow-up act. He dithered on the brink, noting absently that all of the party with the exception of Dinsdale himself had managed to land feet-first in the sewage channel below. The President had eventually regained his footing, but he had suffered a sea-change into something undeniably strange and overpoweringly rich. He had lost his handkerchief along the way.

As Waldo hesitated, Katuki suddenly appeared at the second-level staircase on the other side of the trapdoor. He was carrying a heavy wrench in his hand. "Dirty double-crosser," he shouted, and ran towards Waldo. Waldo turned to flee, but another vatman was coming the other way, a heavy iron pipe in his hand and a murderous expression on his face. Waldo's problem of what to do next seemed to be solved.

With a moan of anticipation, he flung himself backwards through the trapdoor and immersed himself in his work.

In due course, the lowest level's ever-rolling silent stream bore Waldo, President Dinsdale and the rest of them along into the lowest hydroponics area, where they were able to climb out onto the catwalk beside the big tank full of blue-green vegetation. Waldo was the last to arrive, and had expected a certain amount of commotion to greet him. But the reality exceeded his wildest imaginings. He had never heard anything like it.

* * *

Waldo didn't mention that he had saved President Dinsdale from being captured and held hostage? That's not too surprising. You see, it just wasn't true. The trouble with apocalyptic visions is that they often won't withstand a rational examination. Waldo's wild surmise about Katuki's intentions seemed to make sense to him at the time. Why else would Katuki let the still be seen?

The trouble was, it wasn't a still at all. If Waldo had known as much science as the average ten-year-old, he'd have realized that those coils were just part of the standard water recycling equipment on the Station. The thing that Katuki didn't want the visitors to see, and the thing that he was sure Waldo wouldn't let them see, was the lowest level hydroponics tank.

Katuki had misinterpreted Waldo's wink when they had taken their first tour. As Waldo said, just because you've seen a piece of cheese doesn't mean you'd recognize a cow if you saw one. The thing that so excited the visitors who had been plunged through the trapdoor—with the exception of Dinsdale, who had his own preoccupations—was the lowest level hydroponics tank.

The healthy vegetation there, producing oxygen for use in the Station, was also producing—under Katuki's guiding hand—four acres of top-quality taliza plants, for shipment to Earth in return for liquor and other luxuries. Waldo's own knowledge of botany, as a deep hypnoprobe verified, stops at mixed vegetables.

Waldo was given an award by the grateful Space Federation for breaking the taliza ring. And Katuki's repeated attempts to get to Waldo during the trial and kill him with his bare hands proved pretty conclusively that Waldo had never had any part of the drug ring. But evidence or no evidence, Waldo never during the course of the whole trial received anything but a negative vote from President Dinsdale.

Afterword.

At the end of 1976, I attended a NATO Advanced Research Institute meeting in Bermuda. When I went there, I felt very conscious of the fact that Shakespeare's "The Tempest" is set on an island very like Bermuda—Shakespeare had of course never been there, but he had heard descriptions of the place. It must have formed part of his inspiration.

While I was there, what emerged was not much like "The Tempest." It was the unsavory tale you have just read. Make of that what you will. Myself, I blame it on the changes that have taken place in the island since 1613.

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT

"So we now group all the World into six classes of essence. First, and lowest, the rocks and earth; second, all plants; third, all animals; fourth, mankind; fifth, the corporeal spirits that abide in water and air; and sixth and highest, the pure spirits of the gods, who rarely assume earthly shapes.

"Now we can divide these groups further. First—"

"Cyrus! Hey, Cyrus!"

He peered through the arch to his left, then back to the podium. Luckily, the lecturer didn't seem to have heard the loud whisper. Cyrus waved his hand feebly, trying to banish the purple robe and grinning face without attracting attention. No good. Damon was beckoning, and all set to try again at higher volume. Damn the man! He put on his sandals and slipped silently out of the auditorium.

"What are you playing at, Damon? Don't you know Cambyses came all the way from Persis to give these talks? I want to hear him!"

"Wordy old fool. Who cares where he came from? It's no use to come from the Tin Isles, even, if you talk rubbish when you get here . . ."

Cyrus sighed. As his hair turned grey, his own respect for age and wisdom grew, but Damon had all the impatience of youth and royalty.

"It's not rubbish. He's a great philosopher—and I want to hear him. What were you kicking up that fuss for—couldn't it wait a while?"

"No. You said I'd have a chance to win back that wager any time I wanted to. Well, I want it now. Come on, quick, let's go."

Outside in the hot sun, he threaded the way quickly down the hill from the lecture hall, ignoring Cyrus' protests of age, lack of breath and arthritis, and stopped before the hanging barrel of the vintners.

"They're tapping the big tun of white wine, into the little barrels for shipping. I want to bet on it. I'll bet I can get nearer than you can on the number of little barrels it fills. Double or nothing—if you win, you get the other mare; if you lose, I get the first one back."

Cyrus stood in the courtyard and scratched at his beard. A wager was hard to resist, but there was something odd here. Damon's bets ran more to the number of teeth of a whore, or the color of a horse's droppings. He hesitated, squinting at and assessing the big tun and the little barrels.

"You've not been cheating, now, have you? No talking to the tellers?"

Damon's grin was suspiciously broad. "Haven't talked to a teller, haven't seen a measuring table. Now, what's your bet?"

"Never seen one like this tapped before?"

"Never."

"We-ell, all right then. I bet—six score."

"—And I bet—eight and a half score. Nearest is the winner. Come on, let's count. They'll be finished before dark."

One hundred and seventy four barrels—and a lost mare—later, suspicion approached certainty. Cyrus sat on the warm marble bench in the forecourt and looked up at Damon's triumphant face.

"A bet's a bet. So, you won—now, tell me the secret."

Damon sat next to him and laid a brown hand on Cyrus' shoulder.

"It's not a secret really. You know One-Ear Afshar came back a month ago from a merchant trip to the Mid-World Sea? Well, he bought a slave in Alexandria, a big, hulking barbarian from the ends of the Earth. He got him cheap, because his old owner said he was a useless idiot who couldn't be relied on to watch a fire without letting it go out.

"He really is an idiot, too. I've talked to him. But he's possessed. Sometimes when you ask him something, you can see the spirit take him, and he's gone for a while. Then at last he gets his body back.

"Anyway, I found out that this demon answers questions about numbers. I asked about the tun and the barrels this morning, and he gave me the answer—between eight and nine score. Wasn't really cheating, was it?"

"Not far off it." Cyrus looked down the hill to the blue, salty lake. "A devil who can calculate, eh? Now there's a new one. I've heard of devils who give a man the strength of ten, and even of devils who tell the future. But devils who calculate? Wait now, maybe there's an answer here. He saw in the future how many barrels they would get, and told you that. Maybe he answers number questions by seeing ahead."

"Maybe. Ask him if you like. He's been standing over by that well for a while, doing absolutely nothing." Damon raised his voice. "Hey, Melos. Come over here!"

The figure by the well was motionless for a long moment, before he looked around him.

"Here, over here on the bench."

Close up, he towered over them, much taller even than Damon. His hair was a pale, fine mop, and Cyrus saw that his eyes were not brown, but a cold blue.

"Yes, Lord?"

"Melos, how many barrels like this one in the great tun?"

"As I said, Lord, between eight and nine score." The words were strangely accented but grammatically perfect. A frown spread across the pale features and he looked puzzled. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing wrong," Cyrus broke in. "Melos, I am sure that is not your original name. What were you called in your country?"

The reply was a broken mixture of rough gutturals. Cyrus raised his eyebrows, then smiled.

"I think I'll have to call you Melos. I won't even try and pronounce the other.

"Melos, there is no problem. But suppose I had used, say, this drinking horn to empty the great tun. How many horns to empty it then?" He turned to his companion. "There, Damon, that should answer any question of seeing the future. No one will empty the vat with that."

The slave looked at the complex curved shape of the horn, and at the simple cylindrical barrel. He hesitated. "Lord, forgive me, but I cannot . . . unless . . ."

The face muscles slackened, the jaw dropped and all expression went from the eyes. The fair hair blew in the breeze over the empty mask of an idiot.

"There, see, Cyrus—possessed. I told you so. Now if you wait a minute, he'll be back."

Melos stood motionless. After a long pause, the mouth closed, the eyes focussed, and he said, "One moment, Lord."

He took the horn and small barrel over to the well, drew water and filled the barrel using the horn. Then he returned. "Between sixty-two and sixty-eight score, Lord."

Cyrus' eyes were alight with excitement. "Damon, do you know what he did—or I think he did? Well, never mind. Melos, before you were a slave, were you a teller and measurer?"

"No, Lord. A sailor."

"Then how did you know how many horns would be needed to empty the tun? Come, speak up, don't be afraid."

Melos hesitated. "I am not afraid, Lord. But I do not know how to explain. It is many things. It is measurement, and counting, and—other things for which I have no words."

"See," Damon nudged Cyrus. "Possessed, clear as crystal, just as I said."

"No, Damon, there's more to it than that. Damn it, I'll have to talk to One-Ear Afshar, if I can."

"Why don't you? He's just down the hill."

"I'm not sure he'll talk to me. It was before your time, and I don't talk about it much, but it's my doing that he's called One-Ear. I was the one who caught him cheating on his weights. They lopped off an ear. Long ago, but he's never forgiven me.

"I'll talk to him anyway—in the morning."

He looked back to Melos, who stood motionless and expressionless. "That's all, Melos."

"Yes, Lord." The slave did not move or speak further as Cyrus and Damon went on down the hill towards the stables.

* * *

"He's an idiot all right—most of the time. What do you want with him, Cyrus?"

Afshar, spade-bearded and powerful, looked slantingly up. "Like him for a boy friend, maybe, would you? I don't think Thais would be too fond of that idea. Still, he'd be a nice big armful, I'll give you that." He smiled, showing a graveyard of rotting teeth.

"Of course I don't want him for that. Look, Afshar, you know my interest in philosophy and scholarship. Well, I think Melos is something more than you know."

"You'll never make a merchant, Cyrus. Show your interest and up goes the price. You want to buy him then, do you? And how much will you pay?"

"Forty pieces of gold—forty five even."

Afshar sucked a breath past the ruined teeth. "Would you, eh? Now that's a lot of money. Why would you offer five times the value of an unskilled laborer? Know something I don't know, perhaps?" He rubbed a smooth piece of quartz between his hands, then polished it on his robe. "Want to do me out of some money, do you?"

"Of course not, Afshar. I want to try an idea. I want to send Melos over to see old Darius, in Susa. I think there may be the makings of a philosopher in him. If so, he shouldn't be a slave, he should be a freeman and a citizen."

"A philosopher, now—in a barbarian slave." Afshar crowed softly. "You're a fool, Cyrus, and you always will be. There's value in Melos, all right, but it's not philosophy. Come outside with me and I'll show you something."

He led the way into the cluttered sunlit courtyard. He took the smooth shaped oval of quartz and held it above a heap of shavings on a marble table.

"Watch now, watch there."

A bright spot appeared on the shavings. After a moment, a wisp of smoke; a moment later and the shavings were alight, burning pale in the sunlight.

"See, Cyrus, Melos made this when he was possessed. There's his demon in the quartz, locked up, and he can trap the Sun.

"I'll be selling sun fires now—pure and lucky, because there's a piece of the Sun in them." He looked slyly at Cyrus. "Think I'd sell you a slave who can do that, do you?"

"Afshar, I'll pay you sixty pieces of gold."

"Not for ten score pieces, not for twenty score." He rubbed the red stump of his right ear. "To you, Cyrus? Never. It's enough to know you want him. Good day to you, and I'll be pleased if you'll leave my courtyard."

He started back in, but paused at the door of the house. "Maybe I'll be kind to you, Cyrus. Melos will be yours—for nothing. The day I die, and not before. If you want to send him to Susa now, you may. It will cost you one gold piece for every day you rent him. I'll be here if you want to accept my offer. Now, go."

Leaving the courtyard, Cyrus passed the giant, silent figure of Melos, leaning against the outside wall.

"Melos." Again, the empty eyes came back from far away, before the reply.

"Yes, Lord?"

"Your Master showed me the quartz and said you put a devil in it. You told him that?"

The slave sighed. "No, Lord, there is no devil. It is in the shape of it alone, that brings together the sunlight. But Master prefers my devils to my words."

A gleam of humor showed in the pale eyes. "If the Master thought that shapes would sell better than devils, I think perhaps my words would be heeded more."

"And do you believe in gods and devils, Melos?"

"Of course, Lord. Many things cannot be explained without them. But many can. I would not waste a god or a devil on something that does not need it."

All the way back to his own house, Cyrus tried to make up his mind. A gold piece a day, for, say, thirty days in Susa. And at the end of it, what? If Darius' views agreed with Cyrus, that would be just the beginning. There would be training, analysis, discussion. And at the end of that? Perhaps, a mind to show new visions. But perhaps nothing.

Thais felt his distance that night. Everything was physical, the mind elsewhere. Afterwards, little by little she teased out the story. When Melos' name was mentioned she nodded her dark head vigorously.

"Damon is right, Melos the slave is possessed. The other slaves in Afshar's house fear him. You know he drinks blood? Human and animals. One of Afshar's concubines has seen him do it."

"Thais, I think you're worse than Damon for collecting gossip." He laughed and lifted a heavy loop of scented hair from his bare chest. "Drinks blood, does he? Does he breathe fire too?"

"Cyrus, don't joke about it. You know, Afshar's slaves say Melos likes to remain in the artificer's shop all night long. He sleeps very little and he keeps the others awake with his incantations. He is making spells and conjuring demons there. The others have heard them, hissing like snakes."

"Like snakes, eh? I'd like to know more about that, too. But Afshar isn't likely to invite me in to watch. If Melos is conjuring demons, I wonder why Afshar lets him. All he's interested in is increasing his store of gold."

When Thais was told about Afshar's proposed rate of one gold piece a day, her reaction was so violent that Cyrus dropped it at once. She shook with rage.

"So much money on a slave! Cyrus, I am a slave and I never ask for money. Already you pamper your slaves. Who else serves fresh fruit and meat to the rowers in the galleys, and who else allows them possessions and women of their own? Why do you think of wasting money on that big barbarian oaf?"

"Thais, my dear, I think that 'big barbarian oaf' can already do things that I cannot do. If he could become a true philosopher, he should be a companion, not a slave, and he should rightfully have the finest gift that I can offer: the gift of freedom and the right of citizenship.

"Why do you think that my galleys, year after year, are faster than all the others? Because the rowers know that if they serve me well it can lead to their own freedom."

But at that point, Thais refused to speak to him at all until morning.

* * *

Cyrus' interest in Melos might have faded, little by little, but a week later Damon, nosy as ever, revived it. They had ridden (on the wagered mares, which by unspoken agreement they both had the right to ride) to the top of the dry rocky hill above the city and were looking down at the lake below them. The air was very clear and the galleys far below looked like shiny narrow pointed slippers, with toothpick oars. Damon looked at them, then at Cyrus.

"You know, I suppose, that your friend Afshar is going into the galley business? I saw him a couple of days ago, waddling about the quay with Melos in tow. He's bought a big galley and now he's going about town saying his galley can beat the fastest."

"And that's mine, right? If he's using oarsmen the size of Melos, maybe he's right."

"He isn't. He's rounded up as miserable a set of spavined, knock-kneed, consumptive specimens as I've ever seen. They'll get tired pulling away from the jetty." Damon pushed his long dark hair back from his forehead with a dusty forearm, and took a long pull from his wineskin. "But he's after you all right. I heard him say as much. No names, but he talked about the dreamers who go about with their heads full of philosophy and boast about their mediocre galleys."

Cyrus stiffened and sat upright on his horse. His galleys embodied part of his philosophy and were one of his few points of real pride.

"Well, I can settle that easily enough—a wager should scare him back to the rag trade. I'll look him up tomorrow and fix it."

Next day, Cyrus found Afshar by the quay, sniffing around the galleys. He looked at Cyrus' vessel disdainfully, and then at Cyrus, rolling a fat-sunk eye.

"All right for running pleasure orgies round the lake, I suppose. I wouldn't give much for its chances in a real race, though."

Cyrus reined his anger, "Afshar, I've won every galley race for the past eight years—as you would know, if you knew anything at all about galleys or racing. If you want to put money with your words, do so. If not, I think you should take lessons in silence."

"Oh, I think I might wager, Cyrus. Shall we say—Thais against Melos?"

"Don't be a fool, Afshar, you know I would never wager Thais."

"Then I suppose it will have to be for money. How much?"

"You are the challenger, you name the sum."

"Then let us say—a thousand pieces of gold?"

Cyrus had the sinking feeling that he had been trapped. And yet, it seemed impossible that Damon could have so misjudged Afshar's crew. The wager was set. The preparations began.

* * *

Four days before the race, Cyrus received an unusual deputation. Four green-robed priests arrived unannounced after dinner and requested a meeting. Following the usual ceremonial greetings and glass of wine, the senior priest began.

"Cyrus, we come to you as our city's most experienced traveller. You have seen more of the world than any of us. You have seen Rome, and Athens, and Egypt, and beyond." He paused and looked at his companions. There were nods of agreement. "We need your advice. There are currents running now in the city that must be stopped, and it is our duty to stop them.

"We will soon be holding a hearing. Unless the answers there are acceptable, Afshar will bear trial for sorcery."

He held up a hand, cutting off Cyrus' astonished response.

"For the actions of his slave, Melos. A Master is always responsible for his Slaves' actions. Now, what do you know of Melos, and the country of his birth?"

"Directly, nothing. I imagine he comes from somewhere north and west of the Mid-World Sea, even beyond the Tin Isles. He spoke of the movement of the ocean on the shore, at the Moon's command, and that I have seen myself, in the great ocean to the south, and also west beyond the Mid-World Sea.

"But Melos speaks also of flickering colored lights that fill the winter sky, and of summer days when the Sun never sets. I have never seen these things."

The priests nodded again. "He also says other things. He denies all knowledge of the giants and the tree-men who live in the North, and at the same time he tells other slaves of fish longer and broader than a galley, and of ice mountains that float in the sea.

"We believe that he is an instrument of demons, and the places he speaks of are not of this world. Cyrus, in your travels did you ever meet men who drink the blood of men and animals?"

"Never, but I've heard talk of it from the black people far along the great river of Egypt. Hearsay only, that was. But surely, this is hearsay of Melos too?"

Shaking heads. "He has been seen to do it. We have witnesses, reliable witnesses."

"And have you asked for explanations from Afshar and Melos?"

"No. Afshar is behaving very secretively. The questions will come at the trial, twenty days from now. We want you to bear witness then of your own travels—what you have seen and have never seen in distant lands.

"Thank you now for the help you have given us already. Goodnight, and the gods' blessings."

Again, grave bows. They departed in a rustling of stiff robes. They left behind a troubled Cyrus. The wager and the galley race were suddenly less important.

* * *

"I don't know how—to find out. Melos will—normally talk freely—about most things. But Afshar—ordered him to keep—quiet now and not—to talk to me."

Cyrus' speech came as a series of pained grunts while the slave's trained fingers probed, twisted and pummeled the muscles of his back. On the next table, also naked, Damon was enduring a similar torment from oil and a pumice scraper. He was muttering and groaning ruefully.

"Never again, Cyrus. Never again, I'm off spiced wine forever this time. He's killing me here with those hot towels."

"Only way I know of—to get rid of—a bad hangover. You shouldn't—even feel it at—your age. Ahhh."

The sigh came as a great copper cauldron of very hot water was poured over his bare back.

"You'll be drunk—again next week—Damon—I know—it. Look, I want to ask you—a question. Does Melos have—a woman?"

Damon started to shake his head, then thought better of it. "You and Melos. You're obsessed with that slave. If I didn't know you well, I'd think you had eyes for him." He leered at Cyrus across the gap between the tables. "He doesn't have a regular woman, or a boy friend either. I don't know what's wrong with him, he's a complete man all right, not a eunuch. But he's just not very interested."

Damon was being slowly turned into a steaming mummy by swathes of scalding towels.

"If you're still keen to find out what's going on in Afshar's artificer's shop, though, I can tell you how to do that."

"Some of us draw the line at dressing up as a cleaning woman, Damon."

"Yes, and I'm one of them now. All that trouble I had getting into the house, then I found she had hair on her chest and smelled of rancid fat. It shows how keen I was at eighteen, I went through with it anyway.

"Now forget my wild youth. What I'm suggesting is nothing like that and it's dead easy. The roof of Khosro's house looks over Afshar's yard, and Khosro is a friend of mine. It's a long way off for a really close look but you probably don't need that. It'll have to be at night anyway, or Afshar could see you from his upstairs window."

Cyrus sat up. "Tonight. I'll do it tonight."

Damon carefully lifted his head and shook it experimentally. "You know, I think I'll live. If you go, I'll come with you. Now, how about a small cup of wine here to complete the cure?"

* * *

Seen from above, the yard at night was a confused blur of dark metal shapes and flickering shadows from the forge. A large metal cylinder with its own fire inside it stood in the center of the yard. Melos moved round it like a fire giant, tapping, turning parts, and muttering to himself in a mixture of Greek and barbarian gutturals. Finally he seemed satisfied and turned another smaller wheel on the side of the metal container.

A steady, regular hissing began, like a thousand snakes. The yard became a darker haze of smoke, steam and flickering fire reflections. The central part of the cylinder began to turn, slowly and ponderously. Cyrus and Damon strained their eyes into the confusion and watched the speed increase steadily as the hissing rose in pitch.

That was all. After fifteen minutes Melos nodded in satisfaction and turned another wheel on the container. The turning slowed and the hissing decreased to a thread of noise. He removed part of the metal cylinder, carried it over to the forge and began to make a careful adjustment to its shape. Cyrus and Damon watched him for another hour and saw only a patient shaping at the forge, broken by long minutes of silence and thought.

"You stay here if you like, I've had enough," Damon said at last. "I couldn't make any sense out of all that."

"I'll stay a little longer. You go on and I'll wait, just in case."

"Tomorrow morning, then, at the harbor. I want to hear what you and One-Ear come up with as race terms. Think you'll win?"

"I'm more worried trying to think of any way that I could lose. I don't trust Afshar, he's got something up his sleeve. Anyway, tomorrow we should know."

* * *

The next day was still, cloudless and burning hot. Sitting on the harbor wall, Cyrus saw Damon's tall form striding towards him. In a hurry by the look of it. He spoke without the usual greetings.

"Something's funny all right. I've been looking at Afshar's galley. Is there any way he could somehow make you race over land?"

"Damon, please, try and sound rational, even if you're not."

"He's putting wheels on his galley, big ones. And he's moved out the rowers' benches near the back."

"I know the rules for the race as well as anybody. A land race is first ridiculous, second impossible. The galley would fall apart. He can use less rowers if he wants to, but he's not allowed any sort of sail."

Cyrus smiled at his worried friend.

"If he is up to something, we'll know at noon!"

Afshar was certainly pleased by something at midday. His face had a secret, superior look and his walk was self-assured and complacent. The greetings between the two men were cold and formal.

"Your choice, Afshar. Sprint, or distance race, with or against the wind? What do you choose?"

"Distance race, I want. Wind or no wind, I don't care. We'll race for a fixed time, and the one ahead at the end is the winner."

Cyrus caught Damon's look. Something fishy, it said: the one thing that Afshar can't stand with his crew of crocks is a test of endurance. He thought for a moment, then nodded to Afshar.

"Perfectly legal. And the duration? You have that choice too."

Afshar paused for effect. "Shall we say—noon to midnight, with no change of rowers?"

The bystanders gasped. One third of that time was a long race. Cyrus frowned and bit his lip.

"You want to kill your rowers, Afshar? Remember, sails are forbidden. You think you have men who can row for half a day without rest? My men can probably do it, if they must—can yours?"

"No sails, Cyrus. Don't worry about my men, just have a thousand gold pieces ready for me two days from now."

His expression was immensely self-satisfied and smug as he turned and headed for the quay. Cyrus remained on the harbor wall, deep in thought. A catch, but what? A good look at Afshar's galley was in order.

At the jetty there was great activity. Standing aloof from it and yet somehow directing it was the tall figure of Melos. His usual remote manner had gone and in its place was a tremendous concentration on all details of the labor.

The rear benches were out. In their place stood the metal cylinder from the artificer's shop. Instead of the rear oars, giant wheels twenty feet in diameter had been fixed to the galley, their centers a few feet above the water line. Slaves from Afshar's household were loading cords of wood around the cylinder, between the front benches and in every spare space in the galley. Long metal rods ran from the cylinder to the great paddle wheels.

Melos moved forward suddenly from his point of overlook. He moved in among the slaves, and an argument began. Damon, with a confirming glance at Cyrus, wandered unobtrusively over to the jetty. The argument focused around a large barrel, which Melos did not want on the galley. After a few moments, Afshar himself joined in and overruled Melos' objections. The barrel was hoisted on board. Damon sauntered back to Cyrus. He shrugged.

"Melos didn't want it on board. I don't know why, it's not so much weight. That's all the argument was about."

"What's in it?"

"I don't know. Wine for the rowers maybe—though there's more there than they need. There was some other talk between Afshar and Melos, but I couldn't get much out of it. All about demons.

"Afshar asked how the cylinder demon was feeling. Melos said something like, 'Master, there is no cylinder demon. It is the demons in the water that get the strength from the heat. They push to get away, and the hotter the fire, the stronger they become. I am afraid of the barrel because I do not know how strong they can be.'

"Then Afshar said 'The stronger the better. Put the barrel on board.' And that was that."

Cyrus looked grim. If he was right about Melos, the slave could do exceptional things. But these things made no sense. That night he spoke to Thais, hoping that explanation would bring enlightenment.

"You are sure that your rowers are fitter, stronger and keener than Afshar's?"

"I know it."

"Then you have nothing to fear. You cannot lose. All that pampering of your rowers will pay off tomorrow. What was the use of all that care and comfort if they cannot win for you when you need it?"

Cyrus rubbed his grey temples and smiled ruefully. "What good is it to say that I wish to be a philosopher, Thais, if I cannot behave philosophically? I'm a nervous fool, not a philosopher."

"If Melos is a philosopher, as you say, then I hope you are not one. I hear he does not care for man or woman."

"Jealous still? Has he no woman at all?"

"Only for release, not for love. I talk to the slaves of Afshar's house, you know. The women say that Melos is kind and he is gentle, but he has no soul. After it is done, his mind is gone far away. And as I have told you often, the lying together afterwards is the best part of all."

"I'd give a lot, Thais, to know just where Melos' mind goes afterwards. I'm sure he has some trick to help Afshar tomorrow but I cannot think what it can be. Come on, Thais, help me turn off my troubled thoughts."

* * *

The race would follow the boundary of the lake, eastwards, and then turn past the floating markers back towards the city. Normally, one circuit was more than enough for a galley race, but this time it would be three or even four. The race would finish when the judges rang the great copper gong the second time. On a still evening, the sound carried miles across the water, and in any case the sound would be repeated on other gongs along the shore. Shielded oil lamps had been tied to the route buoys to mark the path—a night race was very unusual.

Well before noon, Cyrus was ready. His rowers were rested, well-fed and confident. Afshar's galley, with six less rowers, was still a bustle of activity. Cyrus could see Afshar standing in the prow holding the overseer's whip, and Melos in the stern working near the metal cylinder. In the few minutes before the noon starting gong, the crowd fell silent. Across the water, Cyrus again heard the strange high pitched hissing from the cylinder and a churning noise like a great pump inside the galley.

The shadow of the stone spear in the city square turned steadily with the Sun towards the noon marker. At the starting gong, the oars bit the water and Cyrus' galley moved smoothly forward. Morale was high. The oars moved in perfect unison to the rhythm of the mallets on the wooden blocks.

Cyrus, confident that his galley would function perfectly without him, kept his attention on the other ship. A wood fire was blazing in the cylinder. Cyrus saw the grey smoke pouring up and the great wheels in the rear began to turn, threshing the salt water of the lake. The oarsmen of the other galley had been ragged at the start but were now settling into a reasonable stride. The pace picked up gradually until Afshar was holding a position a couple of hundred yards behind.

The sun stood high in the sky and seared the calm surface of the lake. Through the heat of the long afternoon, Cyrus tended to his rowers, wiping sponges of cold water over their sweating bodies and offering them fruit juices and bread dipped in red wine. He joked with them to keep up their spirits. They all knew that the worst part was still to come, in the evening. They were holding their strength and their will for that time.

Afshar's galley held its position astern, belching out grey smoke and churning the clear water of the lake with the thresh of the great paddle wheels. It had lost no more ground. Cyrus could see the crowds of excited spectators on the shore as they finished the first complete circuit of the lake. Most people had wagered to see Cyrus much further ahead by the late afternoon.

The overseer leaned over to Cyrus and spoke softly, out of earshot of the rowers.

"Master, we cannot hold this rate until midnight. Soon after dark we must ease the pace."

"I know. But Afshar's rowers cannot keep it up either, they do not have the condition of our men."

"Master, look at their strike rate. It is much lower than ours."

Cyrus squinted through the sun's reflected glare at the other galley. In front of the paddle wheels the oars rose and fell at an even, almost a leisurely pace. Melos' device was having a big effect.

As sunset approached, it became clear that Afshar was gaining ground, little by little. When the galleys were a hundred yards apart Cyrus could pick out the tall figure of Melos, his pale hair blackened by smoke and ashes, working at the cylinder in the rear of the ship.

Cyrus had set up his strategy well before the race and it was almost time to use it. Shortly before sunset he slowed a fraction, just enough to let the other galley pass him. As it went by he could hear the excited shouts as the word went below decks to Afshar's rowers. His own oarsmen knew his plan and calmly waited the signal.

Afshar was a hundred paces ahead when Cyrus gestured to his overseer. The tempo of mallets on blocks picked up sharply, the sweeps flashed faster in the evening sunlight and the bow wave rose. Within minutes they had come level again with Afshar and were moving rapidly on past him. Cyrus was counting on a quick lead of a few hundred paces to break the spirit of Afshar's unseasoned oarsmen and destroy their performance.

As they moved past, there were more shouts and frantic activity on the other galley. Afshar himself was running aft in a panic, gesturing excitedly as the gap widened. There was no sign of an answering sprint from his rowers. Melos and Afshar stood in the stern, arguing violently about something.

As the light failed, Cyrus saw the big barrel being dragged to the rear of the galley. The fire in the cylinder began to blaze more brightly and the smoke from it darkened and hung black and dense over the surface of the lake. The great wheels turned faster, then faster yet. The vessel began to pick up speed and again to overhaul Cyrus.

The galleys drew parallel, and Cyrus could see the timbers of the other ship vibrating, groaning and twisting as it put on even more speed. Afshar stood directing activities. Through the deepening darkness it was clear that Melos was still arguing strongly with his Master. Cyrus saw Afshar draw back his arm and bring the long overseer's lash forward hard. Then it was too far and too dark to see anything clearly except the white fire in the metal cylinder. By its light, Cyrus thought he saw a pale form splash into the lake from the stern of Afshar's galley and strike off towards the shore and the lights of the city.

Cyrus motioned to his own overseer to slacken the pace. If Afshar could hold that tremendous speed, then there was no way to catch him. The gap widened. The blaze ahead shrank slowly to a fierce point of light in the distance. The loud hissing came clearly across the water and the greasy smoke filled his nostrils.

Suddenly, the point of light ahead spread upwards like a white starburst, then was as quickly extinguished completely. A few seconds later a great thunderclap of sound spread over the lake. Cyrus strained his eyes ahead but could see no sign of Afshar's galley. Screams of fear and agony reached him across the dark water. He ordered double tempo for the oarsmen and they sped on into the darkness.

Where Afshar's galley had been they found only random fragments of wooden beams and floating oars. Clinging to these were five rowers, horribly burned and gasping with the pain of the salt water on their wounds.

The race was over. Cyrus ordered the injured made comfortable—though little could be done—and turned back to the city.

Waiting at the quay he found Damon, Thais and Melos. The latter had a deep purple weal of the lash across his left cheek and a fierce red burn on his right shoulder. He was naked, soaking wet and shivering in the cool night air like a sick horse.

"Damon, lend him a cloak. And Thais, bring some wine. Now Melos, what happened out there?"

Melos was in shock. He tried to speak but at first could find only his barbaric mother tongue. After a cup of wine he at last managed to say, "The barrel of oil. It was too much. I knew the heat would be too great."

"But you did use it."

"I tried to stop it and he struck me with the whip. I know the power of the steam and I jumped into the water."

"You disobeyed your Master and fled. You know the penalty for that?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Well, Afshar is dead now. He was killed when the galley exploded. I suggest that you tell no one else what you have told me. Say you escaped by a lucky accident."

"Yes, Master."

It took a moment before the import of Melos' reply sank in. Master. Not Lord, the term of respect used from a slave, but Master, the term of ownership. Cyrus wondered again at the mind in the shocked, battered and fatigued body, that could accept the news of Afshar's death, re-evaluate Melos' own status and instantly give the appropriate reply.

Afshar was dead, and now Melos belonged to Cyrus. The night had been too terrible for him to feel any joy at the idea. And the next morning, the robed priests called on him and pointed out, apologetically, that he himself must now stand trial for the forbidden actions of his slave, Melos.

* * *

"I know and I understand the charges. To answer them, I would like to present three people to speak on my behalf. First, Darius of Susa, known to you all for his wisdom and scholarship. Second, the slave Melos; and third, myself."

The seven priests were seated at the long sandalwood table in the temple hall of judgement. In front of them, at the trial table, stood Cyrus, and behind him Darius and Melos. Darius of Susa was white bearded and frail and his brown domed head grew only a few wisps of white hair. But the dark eyes were bright and alert above the beaky nose and he looked keenly around him, at the blue tuniced guards and beyond them to the large silent audience in the body of the great hall.

The senior priest looked questioningly at Cyrus. "Darius is always welcome here. But Melos? You know well that a slave cannot give testimony about himself or others. His words can have no weight under our laws."

"I know this. I am asking for an exception for two reasons. First, I only recently became the owner of Melos and there are facts that he knows and I do not about this matter.

"Second, perhaps more important, were it not for this trial I would have made Melos a free man and applied for his citzenship two weeks ago. When this trial is over, if the accusations are shown unfounded, I will at once offer him his freedom. Thus, his present status is unusual."

After a brief discussion, the senior priest nodded. "We look for truth and justice, and the circumstances are indeed unusual. Melos may speak, but it will not form part of our written record.

"Who will speak first? Remember, we will question as we choose."

Cyrus bowed gravely. "I am ready to begin."

"Then proceed."

The hall fell completely silent.

"Sirs, my slave Melos is accused of conjuring demons, of being possessed by demons, of capturing demons and of performing forbidden and inhuman rites. But all these accusations stemmed from either the gossip of ignorant and superstitious slaves, or from the sayings of Afshar himself.

"Evidence from the slaves is not admissible, and Afshar has passed beyond our questioning.

"I knew that I was not competent to evaluate Melos' condition or his knowledge of the forbidden arts, so two weeks ago I sent him to the Academy of Darius at Susa, for thorough examination. Yesterday, Darius and Melos returned here. I would like to ask Darius to tell you what he found."

As Cyrus stepped back, a questioning hand was raised in the row of priests.

"Before we hear from Darius, a question for our records."

Trouble. Cyrus recognized the emaciated form and shaved head of the priest. A member of Afshar's family, conscious of the fact that criticism of Afshar—even posthumous—would bring dishonor to the whole family.

"Of course we all know of Darius and his reputation. And we also know that you, Cyrus, are an old friend of his, and have supported his Academy, like a true patron of scholarship, with money and gifts."

The curled lip made the insult very clear behind the flowery words.

"I would like to ask you what instructions you gave to Darius when Melos was sent to him. And I would like to know what you have said to each other since his arrival yesterday."

"I gave no instructions to Darius, except to ask him to examine Melos as he chose, and thoroughly. For the rest, Darius and Melos arrived late last night. We have had no chance for discussion since that arrival. His report will be as new to me as it is to you."

The thin priest nodded grudging acceptance. Darius came slowly to his feet and stood facing the line of priests.

"Cyrus sent one other thing to me with Melos; the list of charges against him. As you all know, the procedures for raising, containing, and banishing demons are complex, and they rest upon a base of knowledge of arcane ritual and great learning. So it seemed at first glance that a barbarian slave could not be a vessel for such skills. However, I kept an open mind.

"We tested Melos at Susa. He could not read or write, in our language or in any other. He had never heard of the Book of the Dead, the Book of Moones, the Agranas, or any other standard texts of necromancy and sorcery.

"We went further. He knows nothing of the great arts, of music, drama, sculpture, or poetry. He understands nothing of the calendar, of astrology, or of medicine. Nothing of pageantry, nothing of the martial arts. He has never even heard of the great philosophers."

Darius paused.

"One gift he does have, an ability to do calculations. Not too surprising, in one who was a sailor and navigator before his capture.

"As for his demonic possession. Melos—" he turned to face the slave; "—how long a line must be used to join the tops of two masts fifteen paces apart, if one is ten paces tall and the other eighteen?"

The jaw went slack and the face emptied. A stir of superstitious awe ran through the audience, but Melos recovered very quickly and answered: "Seventeen paces of line, Lord—plus a little for tying."

Darius turned again to the line of seated priests. "You see, Sirs. No possession, or idiocy. Concentration while thinking hard. I see this often in many of the scholars at Susa.

"In summary, Melos is not qualified for necromancy or devil-raising—or indeed for any of the civilized occupations. He could not, in my opinion, conjure, contain or disperse demons. He lacks knowledge, training, and equipment. He is, in short, a barbarian slave and no wizard."

The speech, delivered with calm authority, had great effect. Even Afshar's relative was subdued. After a few moments, the chief priest replied.

"We accept your evaluations, Darius. There remain against Melos, however, grave charges that must be explored. We will question him directly on these."

He nodded to the skinny priest to proceed. "Melos, you worked in Afshar's artificer's shop, correct?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Do you deny that you uttered incantations there? Answer carefully, and know that we have witnesses."

"Not incantations, Lord." Melos sighed. "I am fluent now in this language, as you hear. But I still use my native tongue for three things: for counting, praying, and cursing. Because the work in the artificer's shop was hard, complicated and sometimes dangerous, I'm afraid I did a good deal of all three."

A ripple of amusement ran through the audience. The thin priest frowned at the disturbance and went on. "But incantations or not, you engaged there in heathenish and forbidden rites. I refer to the drinking of blood."

That had the effect he wanted. A wave of revulsion now passed though the watching crowd. Melos remained calm.

"Not drinking, Lord. Tasting blood, and that only once and for a definite purpose." He hesitated. "How shall I explain? You know, Lord, that the swords from Damascus exceed all others in the quality of their metal?"

The priest shifted uneasily in his seat. He did not care for the reversal of roles of questioner and questioned.

"I know that, Melos; it is well known."

"Then perhaps you know, Lord, how that fine temper is achieved?"

"I have heard—only heard, mark you—that the sword is heated to red heat, and then—" He stopped, reluctant to go on.

"—And then, Lord," picked up Melos, "it is plunged with suitable rituals into the body of a young male slave. Correct?"

"So it is said." The priest gave reluctant agreement. "But the rituals are pagan and they can have little effect."

"I agree, Lord. It is the combination of the heat and some property of the blood that causes the temper.

"I tasted the blood for only one reason. To try and determine which parts of its composition might cause the tempering effect. This may seem like a trivial occupation to you, Lord—but to a slave an alternative method of tempering is very desirable."

Again there was an appreciative laugh from the crowd. The priest's thin face darkened with anger. Before he could go on, Darius stepped forward again.

"If I may speak again, Sirs. In Susa we tempered a sword using the mixture of salts and warm animal blood that Melos described to us. It is here."

He held up to the audience and the priests a shining two-edged sword.

"In tests by the warriors in Susa, this weapon cut as well and took and held as fine an edge as the best from Damascus."

"And you employed heathenish and pagan rituals?" snapped the angry priest.

"Yes. For one purpose only. As Melos guessed it, those rituals used fixed words spoken in a certain way during the tempering to fix the length of time that is needed in certain stages. The timing of the process is vital to the temper. Other words would do just as well—if they took the same time to utter."

The priest had lost the support of both the crowd and his fellow priests, but he fired one last shot.

"Melos, you deny demonic possession. But what about that devil's engine that led to Afshar's death in the galley? Where did the knowledge come from, if not from the world of devils?"

Melos smiled serenely. "From Alexandria, Lord. Afshar and I saw an engine using steam force there, soon after he bought me." He paused. "Alexandria may indeed be full of devils, Lord, but they behaved very like merchants to my eyes."

The laughter was now out of control. Pale with rage, the thin priest returned defeated to his seat. After a few minutes of discussion in private among the group of priests, Cyrus and Melos were declared free, cleared of all charges.

Cyrus was a popular figure. The city settled in to an evening of celebrations.

* * *

"I had a few bad minutes at the beginning, Darius, and I don't mind admitting it. I didn't know how the questions would go, or what you would say."

Cyrus was holding his own private celebration. In his banquet room, Darius, Cyrus and Damon reclined at ease, while Thais served them with wine chilled with snow from the northern mountains.

Darius laughed. "We were lucky. Nearly everybody was on your side anyway. They fortunately asked just the right questions for us, and I told them the exact truth—but not the whole truth—about Melos."

"I was in the audience in the hall," said Damon, "and your statement sounded complete to me. What was missing from it?"

"Oh, a number of things. I said that when Melos came to Susa he could not read or write. That was true. I did not tell them that he can now read and write with ease. He learned in days. I did not say that he learns everything at a rate that I have never seen before, or that he seems to forget nothing.

"I did not tell them that he makes the mathematicians at Susa seem like children. That he computes areas and volumes using methods that no one yet understands. That geometry—especially the conic sections, which he had never seen before he came to Susa—filled him with such delight that he was sleepless for two nights, looking at all we know and adding discoveries of his own.

"By the way, he says that our constraint of straight edge and compass for constructions is rigid and nonsensical. Not too modest, our Melos.

"Shall I go on? There's plenty more. To the priests, these things would just be proof of demonic possession."

"Then Melos is a philosopher?" asked Cyrus, leaning forward eagerly.

Darius shook his head. "There's the paradox. No. Philosophy as we know it, the philosophy of the Greeks, of Socrates and Plato, do not interest him. His passion is all for the natural world. Lightning, the movements of the planets, the nature of light, the nature of heat, these are the things that absorb him completely.

"Melos is not a philosopher. He is something new to my world, and I am very glad to see him free from the trial—to see both of you free."

Cyrus leaned back again in his couch. "For what you did for us today, Darius, I can never thank you sufficiently. Money could not be enough, I can never repay you."

Darius sipped his wine contentedly, a mischievous look on his old wrinkled face.

"Repay me, Cyrus? You've repaid me already. Think, now, I've been here many times these last ten years. What have I left behind in Susa that I have always brought with me before? There's a riddle for you."

"Darius, you know you never bring more than your clothes. There's no riddle because there's no answer."

The old man chuckled with pleasure. "Wrong, Cyrus. There is an answer—my reader! He has accompanied me these last ten years, since my eyes began to fail for close work.

"Now, thanks to your barbarian slave, I have this."

He pulled a smooth oval of quartz from his robe.

"Why, it's Afshar's firemaker!" said Damon.

"More than that. Look through it, and letters seem to be five times as big. Melos explained how it works to us, but I think it's fair to say that none of us understood him." He fondled the lens lovingly. "I have eyes again. Now, could we let a slave like that be impaled or crucified for demon-raising?"

"Slave!" Cyrus struck his brow. "I swore I'd free Melos the day of the trial. Thais, find him and bring him here."

The tall slave came in as calm as ever. Neither the ordeal of the trial nor the free-flowing wine after it seemed to have had any effect on him.

"Melos, I am ready to make good my promise. You will have your freedom, and I will apply for your citizenship tomorrow."

Cyrus watched the slave expectantly but no reply came.

"Melos, didn't you hear me? Have you no words of thanks?"

Still the slave hesitated, looking for a way. At last he said, "Pardon me, Master, but my words will offend you. Even so, I must tell you the truth.

"If you could give me freedom as I think of it, I would accept it gladly. But Master, what you have yourself is not freedom. To me, freedom is leisure. Leisure to think, simple food, a bed, shelter for my head.

"Master, from morning until night you are busy with a thousand responsibilities. This household, city government, law-making, your duties to your friends and to your slaves. I have seen these eat up your days and your nights.

"I am a slave. But when the given duties of the day are done, I can do as I choose. Even in Afshar's household, the most harried slave had four times the leisure that you have. To think, to eat, to sleep, to make love—but always, time of his own.

"Master, I do not want freedom as you have freedom. Let me remain a slave and serve you as a slave."

Melos stopped and stood motionless, the pale eyes troubled. There was a stunned and unbelieving silence in the firelit room. Cyrus felt disappointment and rage rising within him. Before he could release his anger on Melos, Darius put forward his hand between them.

"Melos has had his say. Before you answer him, I demand my right as an old man to have my say also." He smiled. "It is often my lot to tell people things they know already, but bear with me.

"First, Cyrus, remember that philosophy—and all creative activity—is a lonely, time-consuming toil. I assure you that great thoughts are conceived only in private, and only after long and exhausting preparation. It is very difficult to combine the great responsibilities of household and government with deep research. Melos, I have said, is not a philosopher. But he is something else that requires the same total concentration of effort if it is to be successful. The responsibilities of freedom and citizenship would hinder him on his lonely journey.

"We scholars are a luxury, carried through the world on the shoulders of responsible and understanding people like you.

"Second, Cyrus, you have said you want to be a philosopher. What is a philosopher? You are one already. Philosophy is a view of life and of the world. Following the work of Melos is just one small part of that, and it is a philosopher's duty to see all the different parts of life in their correct perspective and live accordingly.

"Third, let me remind you of the old story of Ranos and the god Mitra. When Mitra was wounded and lost on Earth, Ranos helped him, cared for him and led him at last to the flame at the Gate of Heaven. Mitra went on through and assumed his godhood, but Ranos was mortal and could not enter. He remained in our world, to work, to suffer and at last to die a mortal.

"Mitra is a household god, and has his feast days. But it is Ranos that we hold closest in our hearts. We tell our children about him at night, and set him as the pattern we would like to see in our sons."

Darius leaned forward, his eyes bright in the flickering firelight.

"Consider this well before you answer. Would you be Ranos or Mitra?"

Cyrus was silent for a long time while the others looked on expectantly. Finally he shook his head and sighed.

"Darius, there is only one Darius." He raised his goblet to the old man. "I drink to you."

He smiled, but his eyes were full of sorrow. "We read that Socrates the Greek was irresistible in debate and reduced all his opponents to helplessness. It is clear that you are his disciple and inheritor of his skills.

"I had hoped to be Mitra, you are right. But if the gods have chosen to make me play Ranos, that is more than I have any right to expect or hope for."

He turned to the slave. "Melos, you will remain a slave, and I your Master. Now, I must give you your duties.

"You will go with Darius to Susa and remain with him. Your time will be your own. You will have no other duties, except to preserve the honor of my household by your works. Each year, you will come back here and hold symposia in this house for one month.

"Now go, Melos, with my blessing—and Melos, please, no weapons of war, and no more infernal machines!"

A wistful look came over the face of the slave. Now he was thoughtful. In the pale eyes glowed the memory of the great cylinder, the hissing steam, the moving metal bars, the churning wheels. Then the look faded and he too sighed. He walked forward and knelt at Cyrus' feet.

"Yes, Master."

Afterword.

I first sent this story to Jim Baen, at Galaxy. He said, "It's well-written and interesting, but I just don't have that much belief in the powers of the mind. Why don't you send it to Ben Bova at Analog? He's got faith."

I sent it to Ben Bova at Analog. He said, "I like it very much, but I think it's not quite right for us. Why don't you send it to Ed Ferman at Fantasy and Science Fiction? He'll buy it in a hot minute."

I sent it to Ed Ferman. He rejected it in a hot minute.

I sent it to George Scithers, at Isaac Asimov's Magazine. He said, "You couldn't build a steam engine with the technology available at the time of which you write. And anyway, ancient Persia wasn't like that."

(I disagree with both those comments, and I've spent a lot of time in Persia, but that's another subject.)

I finally sold it to Ted White, who published it in Fantastic Stories.

So how do I view it after that checkered history? I'm very fond of it. To me, it makes a fundamental point, not about steam engines, but about the meaning of freedom; namely, freedom is not an absolute concept. One man's freedom is another man's bondage.

Chronologically, this is the first story I wrote that sold (not the first story I sold or published, but the one that was written earliest). Reading it now, I have to resist the temptation to change it here and there. But I'd probably make it worse—better to leave it alone and write another story.

SKYSTALK

Finlay's Law: Trouble comes at three a.m.

That's always been my experience, and I've learned to dread the hand on my shoulder that shakes me to wakefulness. My dreams had been bad enough, blasting off into orbit on top of an old chemical rocket, riding the torch, up there on a couple of thousand tons of volatile explosives. I'll never understand the nerve of the old-timers, willing to sit up there on one of those monsters.

I shuddered, forced my eyes open, and looked up at Marston's anxious face. I was already sitting up.

"Trouble?" It was a stupid question, but you're allowed a couple of those when you first wake up.

His voice was shaky. "There's a bomb on the Beanstalk."

I was off the bunk, pulling on my undershirt and groping around for my shoes. Larry Marston's words pulled me bolt upright.

"What do you mean, on the Beanstalk?"

"That's what Velasquez told me. He won't say more until you get on the line. They're holding a coded circuit open to Earth."

I gave up my search for shoes and went barefoot after Marston. If Arnold Velasquez were right—and I didn't see how he could be—then one of my old horrors was coming true. The Beanstalk had been designed to withstand most natural events, but sabotage was one thing that could never be fully ruled out. At any moment, we had nearly four hundred buckets climbing the Stalk and the same number going down. With the best screening in the world, with hefty rewards for information even of rumors of sabotage, there was always the small chance that something could be sneaked through on an outbound bucket. I had less worries about the buckets that went down to Earth. Sabotage from the space end had little to offer its perpetrators, and the Colonies would provide an unpleasant form of death to anyone who tried it, with no questions asked.

Arnold Velasquez was sitting in front of his screen door at Tether Control in Quito. Next to him stood a man I recognized only from news pictures: Otto Panosky, a top aide to the President. Neither man seemed to be looking at the screen. I wondered what they were seeing on their inward eye.

"Jack Finlay here," I said. "What's the story, Arnold?"

There was a perceptible lag before his head came up to stare at the screen, the quarter of a second that it took the video signal to go down to Earth, then back up to synchronous orbit.

"It's best if I read it to you, Jack," he said. At least his voice was under control, even though I could see his hands shaking as they held the paper. "The President's Office got this in over the telecopier about twenty minutes ago."

He rubbed at the side of his face, in the nervous gesture that I had seen during most major stages of the Beanstalk's construction. "It's addressed to us, here in Sky Stalk Control. It's quite short. 'To the Head of Space Transportation Systems. A fusion bomb has been placed in one of the out-going buckets. It is of four megaton capacity, and was armed prior to placement. The secondary activation command can be given at any time by a coded radio signal. Unless terms are met by the President and World Congress on or before 02.00 U.T., seventy-two hours from now, we will give the command to explode the device. Our terms are set out in the following four paragraphs. One— ' "

"Never mind those, Arnold." I waved my hand, impatient at the signal delay. "Just tell me one thing. Will Congress meet their demands?"

He shook his head. "They can't. What's being asked for is preposterous in the time available. You know how much red tape there is in inter-governmental relationships."

"You told them that?"

"Of course. We sent out a general broadcast." He shrugged. "It was no good. We're dealing with fanatics, with madmen. I need to know what you can do at your end."

"How much time do we have now?"

He looked at his watch. "Seventy-one and a half hours, if they mean what they say. You understand that we have no idea which bucket might be carrying the bomb. It could have been planted there days ago, and still be on the way up."

He was right. The buckets—there were three hundred and eighty-four of them each way—moved at a steady five kilometers a minute, up or down. That's a respectable speed, but it still took almost five days for each one of them to climb the cable of the Beanstalk out to our position in synchronous orbit.

Then I thought a bit more, and decided he wasn't quite right.

"It's not that vague, Arnold. You can bet the bomb wasn't placed on a bucket that started out more than two days ago. Otherwise, we could wait for it to get here and disarm it, and still be inside their deadline. It must still be fairly close to Earth, I'd guess."

"Well, even if you're right, that deduction doesn't help us." He was chewing a pen to bits between sentences. "We don't have anything here that could be ready in time to fly out and take a look, even if it's only a couple of thousand kilometers. Even if we did, and even if we could spot the bomb, we couldn't rendezvous with a bucket on the Stalk. That's why I need to know what you can do from your end. Can you handle it from there?"

I took a deep breath and swung my chair to face Larry Marston.

"Larry, four megatons would vaporize a few kilometers of the main cable. How hard would it be for us to release ballast at the top end of the cable, above us here, enough to leave this station in position?"

"Well . . ." He hesitated. "We could do that, Jack. But then we'd lose the power satellite. It's right out at the end there, by the ballast. Without it, we'd lose all the power at the station here, and all the buckets too"—there isn't enough reserve power to keep the magnetic fields going. We'd need all our spare power to keep the recycling going here."

That was the moment when I finally came fully awake. I realized the implications of what he was saying, and was nodding before he'd finished speaking. Without adequate power, we'd be looking at a very messy situation.

"And it wouldn't only be us," I said to Velasquez and Panosky, sitting there tense in front of their screen. "Everybody on the Colonies will run low on air and water if the supply through the Stalk breaks down. Dammit, we've been warning Congress how vulnerable we are for years. All the time, there've been fewer and fewer rocket launches, and nothing but foot-dragging on getting the second Stalk started with a Kenya tether. Now you want miracles from us at short notice."

If I sounded bitter, that's because I was bitter. Panosky was nodding his head in a conciliatory way.

"We know, Jack. And if you can pull us through this one, I think you'll see changes in the future. But right now, we can't debate that. We have to know what you can do for us now, this minute."

I couldn't argue with that. I swung my chair again to face Larry Marston.

"Get Hasse and Kano over here to the Control Room as soon as you can." I turned back to Velasquez. "Give us a few minutes here, while we get organized. I'm bringing in the rest of my top engineering staff."

* * *

While Larry was rounding up the others, I sat back and let the full dimensions of the problem sink in. Sure, if we had to we could release the ballast at the outward end of the Stalk. If the Beanstalk below us were severed we'd have to do that, or be whipped out past the Moon like a stone from a slingshot, as the tension in the cable suddenly dropped.

But if we did that, what would happen to the piece of the Beanstalk that was still tethered to Earth, anchored down there in Quito? There might be as much as thirty thousand kilometers of it, and as soon as the break occurred it would begin to fall. Not in a straight line. That wasn't the way that the dynamics went. It would begin to curl around the Earth, accelerating as it went, cracking into the atmosphere along the equator like a billion-ton whip stretching half-way around the planet. Forget the carrier buckets, and the superconducting cables that carried electricity down to the drive train from the solar power satellite seventy thousand kilometers above us. The piece that would do the real damage would be the central, load-bearing cable itself. It was only a couple of meters across at the bottom end, but it widened steadily as it went up. Made of bonded and doped silicon whiskers, with a tensile strength of two hundred million Newtons per square centimeter, it could handle an incredible load—almost two-thirds of a billion tons at its thinnest point. When that stored energy hit the atmosphere, there was going to be a fair amount of excitement down there on the surface. Not that we'd be watching it—the loss of the power satellite would make us look at our own survival problems; and as for the Colonies, a century of development would be ended.

By the time that Larry Marston came back with Jen Hasse and Alicia Kano, I doubt it I looked any more cheerful than Arnold Velasquez, down there at Tether Control. I sketched out the problem to the two newcomers; we had what looked like a hopeless situation on our hands.

"We have seventy-one hours," I concluded. "The only question we need to answer is, what will we be doing at this end during that time? Tether Control can coordinate disaster planning for the position on Earth. Arnold has already ruled out the possibility of any actual help from Earth—there are no rockets there that could be ready in time."

"What about the repair robots that you have on the cable?" asked Panosky, jumping into the conversation. "I thought they were all the way along its length."

"They are," said Jen Hasse. "But they're special purpose, not general purpose. We couldn't use one to look for a radioactive signal on a bucket, if that's what you're thinking of. Even if they had the right sensors for it, we'd need a week to reprogram them for the job."

"We don't have a week," said Alicia quietly. "We have seventy-one hours." She was small and dark-haired, and never raised her voice much above the minimum level needed to reach her audience—but I had grown to rely on her brains more than anything else on the station.

"Seventy-one hours, if we act now," I said. "We've already agreed that we don't have time to sit here and wait for that bucket with the bomb to arrive—the terrorists must have planned it that way."

"I know." Alicia did not raise her voice. "Sitting and waiting won't do it. But the total travel time of a carrier from the surface up to synchronous orbit, or back down again, is a little less than a hundred and twenty hours. That means that the bucket carrying the bomb will be at least half-way here in sixty hours. And a bucket that started down from here in the next few hours—"

"—would have to pass the bucket with the bomb on the way up, before the deadline," broke in Hasse. He was already over at the Control Board, looking at the carrier schedule. He shook his head. "There's nothing scheduled for a passenger bucket, in the next twenty-four hours. It's all cargo going down."

"We're not looking for luxury." I went across to look at the schedule. "There are a couple of ore buckets with heavy metals scheduled for the next three hours. They'll have plenty of space in the top of them, and they're just forty minutes apart from each other. We could squeeze somebody in one or both of them, provided they were properly suited up. It wouldn't be a picnic, sitting in suits for three days, but we could do it."

"So how would we get at the bomb, even if we did that?" asked Larry. "It would be on the other side of the Beanstalk from us, passing at a relative velocity of six hundred kilometers an hour. We couldn't do more than wave to it as it went by, even if we knew just which bucket was carrying the bomb."

"That's the tricky piece." I looked at Jen Hasse. "Do you have enough control over the mass driver system, to slow everything almost to a halt whenever an inbound and an outbound bucket pass each other?"

He was looking doubtful, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. "Maybe. Trouble is, I'd have to do it nearly a hundred times, if you want to slow down for every pass. And it would take me twenty minutes to stop and start each one. I don't think we have that much time. What do you have in mind?"

I went across to the model of the Beanstalk that we kept on the Control Room table. We often found that we could illustrate things with it in a minute that would have taken thousands of words to describe.

"Suppose we were here, starting down in a bucket," I said. I put my hand on the model of the station, thirty-five thousand kilometers above the surface of the Earth in synchronous orbit. "And suppose that the bucket we want to get to, the one with the bomb, is here, on the way up. We put somebody in the inbound bucket, and it starts on down."

I began to turn the drive train, so that the buckets began to move up and down along the length of the Beanstalk.

"The people in the inbound bucket carry a radiation counter," I went on. "We'd have to put it on a long arm, so that it cleared all the other stuff on the Stalk, and reached around to get near the upbound buckets. We can do that, I'm sure—if we can't, we don't deserve to call ourselves engineers. We stop at each outbound carrier, and test for radioactivity. There should be enough of that from the fission trigger of the bomb, so that we'll easily pick up a count when we reach the right bucket. Then you, Jan, hold the drive train in the halt position. We leave the inbound bucket, swing around the Stalk, and get into the other carrier. Then we try and disarm the bomb. I've had some experience with that."

"You mean we get out and actually climb around the Beanstalk?" asked Larry. He didn't sound pleased at the prospect.

"Right. It shouldn't be too bad," I said. "We can anchor ourselves with lines to the ore bucket, so we can't fall."

Even as I was speaking, I realized that it didn't sound too plausible. Climbing around the outside of the Beanstalk in a space-suit, twenty thousand kilometers or more up, dangling on a line connected to an ore bucket—and then trying to take apart a fusion bomb wearing gloves. No wonder Larry didn't like the sound of that assignment. I wasn't surprised when Arnold Velasquez chipped in over the circuit connecting us to Tether Control.

"Sorry, Jack, but that won't work—even if you could do it. You didn't let me read the full message from the terrorists. One of their conditions is that we mustn't stop the bucket train on the Stalk in the next three days. I think they were afraid that we would reverse the direction of the buckets, and bring the bomb back down to Earth to disarm it. I guess they don't realize that the Stalk wasn't designed to run in reverse."

"Damnation. What else do they have in that message?" I asked. "What can they do if we decide to stop the bucket drive anyway? How can they even tell that we're doing it?"

"We have to assume that they have a plant in here at Tether Control," replied Velasquez. "After all, they managed to get a bomb onto the Stalk in spite of all our security. They say they'll explode the bomb if we make any attempt to slow or stop the bucket train, and we simply can't afford to take the risk of doing that. We have to assume they can monitor what's going on with the Stalk drive train."

There was a long, dismal silence, which Alicia finally broke.

"So that seems to leave us with only one alternative," she said thoughtfully. Then she grimaced and pouted her mouth. "It's a two-bucket operation, and I don't even like to think about it—even though I had a grandmother who was a circus trapeze artiste."

She was leading in to something, and it wasn't like her to make a big build-up.

"That bad, eh?" I said.

"That bad, if we're lucky," she said. "If we're unlucky, I guess we'd all be dead in a month or two anyway, as the recycling runs down. For this to work, we need a good way of dissipating a lot of kinetic energy—something like a damped mechanical spring would do it. And we need a good way of sticking to the side of the Beanstalk. Then, we use two ore buckets—forty minutes apart would be all right —like this . . ."

She went over to the model of the Beanstalk. We watched her with mounting uneasiness as she outlined her idea. It sounded crazy. The only trouble was, it was that or nothing. Making choices in those circumstances is not difficult.

* * *

One good thing about space maintenance work—you develop versatility. If you can't wait to locate something down on Earth, then waste another week or so to have it shipped up to you, you get into the habit of making it for yourself. In an hour or so, we had a sensitive detector ready, welded on to a long extensible arm on the side of a bucket. When it was deployed, it would reach clear around the Beanstalk, missing all the drive train and repair station fittings, and hang in close to the outbound buckets. Jen had fitted it with a gadget that moved the detector rapidly upwards at the moment of closest approach of an upbound carrier, to increase the length of time available for getting a measurement of radioactivity. He swore that it would work on the fly, and have a better than ninety-nine percent chance of telling us which outbound bucket contained the bomb—even with a relative fly-by speed of six hundred kilometers an hour.

I didn't have time to argue the point, and in any case Jen was the expert. I also couldn't dispute his claim that he was easily the best qualified person to operate the gadget. He and Larry Marston, both fully suited-up, climbed into the ore bucket. We had to leave the ore in there, because the mass balance between in-going and outbound buckets was closely calculated to give good stability to the Beanstalk. It made for a lumpy seat, but no one complained. Alicia and I watched as the bucket was moved into the feeder system, accelerated up to the correct speed, attached to the drive train, and dropped rapidly out of sight down the side of the Beanstalk.

"That's the easy part," she said. "They drop with the bucket, checking the upbound ones as they come by for radioactivity, and that's all they have to do."

"Unless they can't detect any signal," I said. "Then the bomb goes off, and they have the world's biggest roller-coaster ride. Twenty thousand kilometers of it, with the big thrill at the end."

"They'd never reach the surface," replied Alicia absent-mindedly. "They'll frizzle up in the atmosphere long before they get there. Or maybe they won't. I wonder what the terminal velocity would be if you hung onto the Stalk cable?"

As she spoke, she was calmly examining an odd device that had been produced with impossible haste in the machine shop on the station's outer rim. It looked like an old-fashioned parachute harness, but instead of the main chute the lines led to a wheel about a meter across. From the opposite edge of the wheel, a doped silicon rope led to a hefty magnetic grapnel. Another similar arrangement was by her side.

"Here," she said to me. "Get yours on over your suit, and let's make sure we both know how to handle them. If you miss with the grapple, it'll be messy."

I looked at my watch. "We don't have time for any dry run. In the next fifteen minutes we have to get our suits on, over to the ore buckets, and into these harnesses. Anyway, I don't think rehearsals here inside the station mean too much when we get to the real thing."

We looked at each other for a moment, then began to suit up. It's not easy to estimate odds for something that has never been done before, but I didn't give us more than one chance in a hundred of coming out of it safely. Suits and harnesses on, we went and sat without speaking in the ore bucket.

I saw that we were sitting on a high-value shipment—silver and platinum, from one of the Belt mining operations. It wasn't comfortable, but we were certainly traveling in expensive company. Was it King Midas who complained that a golden throne is not right for restful sitting?

No matter what the final outcome, we were in for an unpleasant trip. Our suits had barely enough capacity for a six-day journey. They had no recycling capacity, and if we had to go all the way to the halfway point we would be descending for almost sixty hours. We had used up three hours to the deadline, getting ready to go, so that would leave us only nine hours to do something about the bomb when we reached it. I suppose that it was just as bad or worse for Hasse and Marston. After they'd done their bit with the detector, there wasn't a thing they could do except sit in their bucket and wait, either for a message from us or an explosion far above them.

"Everything all right down there, Larry?" I asked, testing the radio link with them for the umpteenth time.

"Can't tell." He sounded strained. "We've passed three buckets so far, outbound ones, and we've had no signal from the detector. I guess that's as planned, but it would be nice to know it's working all right."

"You shouldn't expect anything for at least thirty-six hours," said Alicia.

"I know that. But it's impossible for us not to look at the detector whenever we pass an outbound bucket. Logically, we should be sleeping now and saving our attention for the most likely time of encounter—but neither one of us seems able to do it."

"Don't assume that the terrorists are all that logical, either," I said. "Remember, we are the ones who decided that they must have started the bomb on its way only a few hours ago. It's possible they put it into a bucket three or four days ago, and made up the deadline for some other reason. We think we can disarm that bomb, but they may not agree—and they may be right. All we may manage to do is advance the time of the explosion when we try and open up the casing."

As I spoke, I felt our bucket begin to accelerate. We were heading along the feeder and approaching the bucket drive train. After a few seconds, we were outside the station, dropping down the Beanstalk after Jen and Larry.

We sat there in silence for a while. I'd been up and down the Stalk many times, and so had Alicia, but always in passenger modules. The psychologists had decided that people rode those a lot better when they were windowless. The cargo bucket had no windows either, but we had left the hatch open, to simplify communications with the other bucket and to enable us to climb out if and when the time came. We would have to close it when we were outside, or the aerodynamic pressures would spoil bucket stability when it finally entered the atmosphere—three hundred kilometers an hour isn't that fast, but it's a respectable speed for travel at full atmospheric pressure.

Our bucket was about four meters wide and three deep. It carried a load of seven hundred tons, so our extra mass was negligible. I stood at its edge and looked up, then down. The psychologists were quite right. Windows were a bad idea.

Above us, the Beanstalk rose up and up, occulting the backdrop of stars. It went past the synchronous station, which was still clearly visible as a blob on the stalk, then went on further up, invisible, to the solar power satellite and the great ballast weight, a hundred and five thousand kilometers above the surface of the Earth. On the Stalk itself, I could see the shielded superconductors that ran its full length, from the power satellite down to Tether Control in Quito. We were falling steadily, our rate precisely controlled by the linear synchronous motors that set the accelerations through pulsed magnetic fields. The power for that was drawn from the same superconducting cables. In the event of an electrical power failure, the buckets were designed to 'freeze' to the side of the Stalk with mechanical coupling. We had to build the system that way, because about once a year we had some kind of power interruption—usually from small meteorites, not big enough to trigger the main detector system, but large enough to penetrate the shields and mess up the power transmission.

It was looking down, though, that produced the real effect. I felt my heart begin to pump harder, and I was gripping at the side of the bucket with my space-suit gloves. When you are in a rocket-propelled ship, you don't get any real feeling of height. Earth is another part of the Universe, something independent of you. But from our position, moving along the side of the Beanstalk, I had quite a different feeling. We were connected to the planet. I could see the Stalk, dwindling smaller and smaller down to the Earth below. I had a very clear feeling that I could fall all the way down it, down to the big blue-white globe at its foot. Although I had lived up at the station quite happily for over five years, I suddenly began to worry about the strength of the main cable. It was a ridiculous concern. There was a safety factor of ten built into its design, far more than a rational engineer would use for anything. It was more likely that the bottom would fall out of our ore bucket, than that the support cable for the Beanstalk would break. I was kicking myself for my illogical fears, until I noticed Alicia also peering out at the Beanstalk, as though trying to see past the clutter of equipment there to the cable itself. I wasn't the only one thinking wild thoughts.

"You certainly get a different look at things from here," I said, trying to change the mood. "Did you ever see anything like that before?"

She shook her head ponderously—the suits weren't made for agility of movement.

"Not up here, I haven't," she replied. "But I once went up to the top of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and looked at the support cables for that. It was the same sort of feeling. I began to wonder if they could take the strain. That was just for a bridge, not even a big one. What will happen if we don't make it, and they blow up the Beanstalk?"

I shrugged, inside my suit, then realized that she couldn't see the movement. "This is the only bridge to space that we've got. We'll be out of the bridge business, and back in the ferry-boat business. They'll have to start sending stuff up by rockets again. Shipments won't be a thousandth of what they are now, until another Stalk can be built. That will take thirty years, starting without this one to help us—even if the Colonies survive all right, and work on nothing else. We don't have to worry about that, though. We won't be there to hassle with it."

She nodded. "We were in such a hurry to get away it never occurred to me that we'd be sitting here for a couple of days with nothing to do but worry. Any ideas?"

"Yes. While you were making the reel and grapnel, I thought about that. The only thing that's worth our attention right now is a better understanding of the geometry of the Stalk. We need to know exactly where to position ourselves, where we'll set the grapnels, and what our dynamics will be as we move. I've asked Ricardo to send us schematics and lay-outs over the suit videos. He's picking out ones that show the drive train, the placing of the superconductors, and the unmanned repair stations. I've also asked him to deactivate all the repair robots. It's better for us to risk a failure on the maintenance side than have one of the monitoring robots wandering along the Stalk and mixing in with what we're trying to do."

"I heard what you said to Panosky, but it still seems to me that the robots ought to be useful."

"I'd hoped so, too. I checked again with Jen, and he agrees we'd have to reprogram them, and we don't have the time for it. It would take weeks. Jen said having them around would be like taking along a half-trained dog, bumbling about while we work. Forget that one."

As we talked, we kept our eyes open for the outbound buckets, passing us on the other side of the Beanstalk. We were only about ten meters from them at closest approach and they seemed to hurtle past us at an impossible speed. The idea of hitching on to one of them began to seem more and more preposterous. We settled down to look in more detail at the configuration of cables, drive train, repair stations and buckets that was being flashed to us over the suit videos.

It was a weary time, an awful combination of boredom and tension. The video images were good, but there is a limit to what you can learn from diagrams and simulations. About once an hour, Jen Hasse and Larry Marston called in from the lower bucket beneath us, reporting on the news—or lack of it—regarding the bomb detection efforts. A message relayed from Panosky at Tether Control reported no progress in negotiations with the terrorists. The fanatics simply didn't believe their terms couldn't be met. That was proof of their naivety, but didn't make them any less dangerous.

It was impossible to get comfortable in our suits. The ore buckets had never been designed for a human occupant, and we couldn't find a level spot to stretch out. Alicia and I passed into a half-awake trance, still watching the images that flashed onto the suit videos, but not taking in much of anything. Given that we couldn't sleep, we were probably in the closest thing we could get to a resting state. I hoped that Jen and Larry would keep their attention up, watching an endless succession of buckets flash past them and checking each one for radioactivity count.

The break came after fifty-four hours in the bucket. We didn't need to hear the details from the carrier below us to know they had it—Larry's voice crackled with excitement.

"Got it," he said. "Jen picked up a strong signal from the bucket we just passed. If you leave the ore carrier within thirty-four seconds, you'll have thirty-eight minutes to get ready for it to come past you. It will be the second one to reach you. For God's sake don't try for the wrong one."

There was a pause, then Larry said something I would never have expected from him. "We'll lose radio contact with you in a while, as we move further along the Stalk. Good luck, both of you—and look after him, Alicia."

I didn't have time to think that one through—but shouldn't he be telling me to look after her? It was no time for puzzling. We were up on top of our bucket in a second, adrenalin moving through our veins like an electric current. The cable was whipping past us at a great rate; the idea of forsaking the relative safety of the ore bucket for the naked wall of the Beanstalk seemed like insanity. We watched as one of the repair stations, sticking out from the cable into open space, flashed past.

"There'll be another one of those coming by in thirty-five seconds," I said. "We've got to get the grapnels onto it, and we'll be casting blind. I'll throw first, and you follow a second later. Don't panic if I miss—remember, we only have to get one good hook there."

"Count us down, Jack," said Alicia. She wasn't one to waste words in a tight spot.

I pressed the digital read-out in my suit, and watched the count move from thirty-five down to zero.

"Count-down display on Channel Six," I said, and picked up the rope and grapnel. I looked doubtfully at the wheel that was set in the middle of the thin rope, then even looked suspiciously at the rope itself, wondering if it would take the strain. That shows how the brain works in a crisis—that rope would have held a herd of elephants with no trouble at all.

I cast the grapnel as the count touched to zero, and Alicia threw a fraction later. Both ropes were spliced onto both suits, so it was never clear which grapnel took hold. Our bucket continued to drop rapidly towards Earth, but we were jerked off the top of it and went zipping on downwards fractionally slower as the friction reel in the middle of the rope unwound, slowing our motion.

We came to a halt about fifty meters down the Beanstalk from the grapnel, after a rough ride in which our deceleration must have averaged over seven gee. Without that reel to slow us down gradually, the jerk of the grapnel as it caught the repair station wall would have snapped our spines when we were lifted from the ore bucket.

We hung there, swinging free, suspended from the wall of the Stalk. As the reel began to take up the line that had been paid out, I made the mistake of looking down. We dangled over an awful void, with nothing between us and that vast drop to the Earth below but the thin line above us. When we came closer to the point of attachment to the Beanstalk wall, I saw just how lucky we had been. One grapnel had missed completely, and the second one had caught the very lip of the repair station platform. Another foot to the left and we would have missed it altogether.

We clawed our way up to the station rim—easy enough to do, because the gravity at that height was only a fraction of a gee, less than a tenth. But a fall from there would be inexorable, and we would have fallen away from the Beanstalk, with no chance to reconnect to it. Working together, we freed the grapnel and readied both lines and grapnels for re-use. After that there was nothing to do but cling to the side of the Beanstalk, watch the sweep of the heavens above us, and wait for the outbound ore buckets to come past us.

The first one came by after seventeen minutes. I had the clock read-out to prove it, otherwise I would have solemnly sworn that we had waited there for more than an hour, holding to our precarious perch. Alicia seemed more at home there than I was. I watched her moving the grapnel to the best position for casting it, then settle down patiently to wait.

It is hard to describe my own feelings in that period. I watched the movement of the stars above us, in their great circle, and wondered if we would be alive in another twenty minutes. I felt a strong communion with the old sailors of Earth's seas, up in their crow's-nest in a howling gale, sensing nothing but darkness, high-blown spindrift, perilous breakers ahead, and the dipping, rolling stars above.

Alicia kept her gaze steadily downwards, something that I found hard to do. She had inherited a good head for heights from her circus-performer grandmother.

"I can see it," she said at last. "All ready for a repeat performance?"

"Right." I swung the grapnel experimentally. "Since we can see it this time, we may as well throw together."

I concentrated on the bucket sweeping steadily up towards us, trying to estimate the distance and the time that it would take before it reached us. We both drew back our arms at the same moment and lobbed the grapnels towards the center of the bucket.

It came past us with a monstrous, silent rush. Again we felt the fierce acceleration as we were jerked away from the Beanstalk wall and shot upwards after the carrier. Again, I realized that we couldn't have done it without Alicia's friction reel, smoothing the motion for us. This time, it was more dangerous than when we had left the downbound bucket. Instead of trying to reach the stationary wall of the Stalk, we were now hooked onto the moving bucket. We swung wildly beneath it in its upward flight, narrowly missing contact with elements of the drive train, and then with another repair station that flashed past a couple of meters to our right.

Finally, somehow, we damped our motion, reeled in the line, slid back the cover to the ore bucket and fell safely forward inside it. I was completely drained. It must have been all nervous stress—we hadn't expended a significant amount of physical energy. I know that Alicia felt the same way as I did, because after we plumped over the rim of the carrier we both fell to the floor and lay there without speaking for several minutes. It gives some idea of our state of mind when I say that the bucket we had reached, with a four megaton bomb inside it that might go off at any moment, seemed like a haven of safety.

We finally found the energy to get up and look around us. The bucket was loaded with manufactured goods, and I thought for a sickening moment that the bomb was not there. We found it after five minutes of frantic searching. It was a compact blue cylinder, a meter long and fifty centimeters wide, and it had been cold-welded to the wall of the bucket. I knew the design.

"There it is," I said to Alicia. Then I didn't know what to say next. It was the most advanced design, not the big, old one that I had been hoping for.

"Can you disarm it?" asked Alicia.

"In principle. There's only one problem. I know how it's put together—but I'll never be able to get it apart wearing a suit. The fingerwork I'd need is just too fine for gloves. We seem to be no better off than we were before."

We sat there side by side, looking at the bomb. The irony of the situation was sinking in. We had reached it, just as we hoped we could. Now, it seemed we might as well have been still back in the station.

"Any chance that we could get it free and dump it overboard?" asked Alicia. "You know, just chuck the thing away from the bucket."

I shook my head, aware again of how much my suit impeded freedom of movement. "It's spot-welded. We couldn't shift it. Anyway, free fall from here would give it an impact orbit, and a lot of people might be killed if it went off inside the atmosphere. If we were five thousand kilometers higher, perigee would be at a safe height above the surface—but we can't afford to wait for another sixteen hours until the bucket gets up that high. Look, I've got another idea, but it will mean that we'll lose radio contact with the station."

"So what?" said Alicia. Her voice was weary. "There's not a thing they can do to help us anyway."

"They'll go out of their minds with worry down on Earth, if they don't know what's happening here."

"I don't see why we should keep all of it for ourselves. What's your idea, Jack?"

"All right." I summoned my reserves of energy. "We're in vacuum now, but this bucket would be airtight if we were to close the top hatch again. I have enough air in my suit to make a breathable atmosphere in this enclosed space, at least for long enough to let me have a go at the bomb. We've got nearly twelve hours to the deadline, and if I can't disarm it in that time I can't do it at all."

Alicia looked at her air reserve indicator and nodded. "I can spare you some air, too, if I open up my suit."

"No. We daren't do that. We have one other big problem—the temperature. It's going to feel really cold in here, once I'm outside my suit. I'll put my heaters on to maximum, and leave the suit open, but I'm still not sure I can get much done before I begin to freeze up. If I begin to lose feeling in my fingers, I'll need your help to get me back inside. So you have to stay in your suit. Once I'm warmed up, I can try again."

She was silent for a few moments, repeating the calculations that I had just done myself.

"You'll only have enough air to try it twice," she said at last. "If you can't do it in one shot, you'll have to let me have a go. You can direct me on what has to be done."

There was no point in hanging around. We sent a brief message to the station, telling them what we were going to do, then closed the hatch and began to bleed air out of my suit and into the interior of the bucket. We used the light from Alicia's suit, which had ample power to last for several days.

When the air pressure inside the bucket was high enough for me to breathe, I peeled out of my suit. It was as cold as charity in that metal box, but I ignored that and crouched down alongside the bomb in my underwear and bare feet.

I had eleven hours at the most. Inside my head, I fancied that I could hear a clock ticking. That must have been only my fancy. Modern bombs have no place for clockwork timers.

By placing my suit directly beneath my hands, I found that I could get enough heat from the thermal units to let me keep on working without a break. The clock inside my head went on ticking, also without a break.

On and on and on.

* * *

They say that I was delirious when we reached the station. That's the only way the Press could reconcile my status as public hero with the things that I said to the President when he called up to congratulate us.

I suppose I could claim delirium if I wanted to—five days without sleep, two without food, oxygen starvation, and frostbite of the toes and ears, that might add up to delirium. I had received enough warmth from the suit to keep my hands going, because it was very close to them, but that had been at the expense of some of my other extremities. If it hadn't been for Alicia, cramming me somehow back into the suit after I had disarmed the bomb, I would have frozen to death in a couple of hours.

As it was, I smelled ripe and revolting when they unpacked us from the bucket and winkled me out of my suit—Alicia hadn't been able to re-connect me with the plumbing arrangements.

So I told the President that the World Congress was composed of a giggling bunch of witless turds, who couldn't sense a global need for more bridges to space if a Beanstalk were pushed up their backsides—which was where I thought they kept their brains. Not quite the speech that we used to get from the old-time returning astronauts, but I must admit it's one that I'd wanted to give for some time. The audience was there this time, with the whole world hanging on my words over live TV.

We've finally started construction on the second Beanstalk. I don't know if my words had anything to do with it, but there was a lot of public pressure after I said my piece, and I like to think that I had some effect.

And me? I'm designing the third Beanstalk; what else? But I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting for a Congressional Vote of Thanks for my efforts saving the first one.

Afterword.

A good science fiction short story, running twenty pages or less, is hard to write—harder than other short stories. In addition to the plot, characters, and general background, the writer must somehow work in the scientific background that makes the story science fiction. If the main idea is scientifically new and complex, that alone will take up all twenty pages, just to explain it.

What you usually find is a trade-off. As the original science content of the story goes up, the intensity, depth of characterization and plot content go down. Twenty pages are twenty pages, and although a skilled writer may be able to compress a quart into a pint pot, ten gallons won't fit in there. No amount of compression can give a short story the same freedom for development as a novel.

There are three traditional solutions to this problem. One is to write stories that have no science content at all. This leaves maximum scope for the other goodies. Lots of people use this approach, but to me the result is not science fiction.

Another solution is to use old concepts that readers have met before, but to do it so that an impression of something new is transferred to the reader. No one has to go into details any more about what a rocket is or does—that was not true a hundred years ago. We don't choke over the idea of a low-gee environment, and I can write the words "warp drive" and know that the average reader won't even be slowed by it. I believe that most short sf falls into this category, of the use of the familiar trappings of the field.

Finally, the third method is to bite the bullet, accept the trade-off, and admit that short stories with complex new ideas will be stories mainly about those ideas. That's what I did in "Skystalk." Although the work is fiction, the idea is the story. For character, look elsewhere in this collection.

HOW TO BUILD A BEANSTALK

THE AGE OF ROCKETS.

The launch of a Saturn V rocket is an impressive sight. It is impressively noisy, impressively big and impressively risky. It is also one of Man's outstanding examples of conspicuous consumption, where a few thousand tons of fuel go up (literally) in smoke (literally) in a couple of minutes. And yet it is, in 1979, the best space transportation system that we have.

If we were to sit down and make a list of the properties of our 'ideal' space transportation system, without worrying about whether or not we could ever hope to achieve it, what would it look like? Well, first and most important it ought not to use up any raw materials in its working—no reaction mass, which all rockets need to propel themselves. It ought to allow us to take materials up and down from planetary surfaces, and be equally good at moving us around in free space. And it would be nice if it were somehow completely energy-free. While we are at it, let's ask that it be also silent and non-polluting.

Note that our old friend, the rocket, satisfies none of our ideal system requirements. The Space Shuttle, our first reusable spacecraft, is not suited to anything beyond low earth orbit activities, and is, with all its advantages over its non-reusable predecessors, still a very primitive system.

It may sound improbable, but an ideal space system, satisfying all our requirements, could be here in a couple of generations. As we shall see, the technology needed is not far from that already available to us.

It is curious that science fiction, which likes to look beyond today's technology, has remained so infatuated with the idea of rockets. Some people even use them to define the field. Look at the 'sf' section in public libraries and you will often see a small drawing of a rocket attached to the spine of each volume. It may be a perverse choice of label for a branch of writing that covers everything from 'Ringworld' to 'Flowers for Algernon,' but you can see how the logic goes; science fiction means space travel, and space travel means rockets—because they are 'the only way of getting up to space and around in space.' After all, there is nothing for any other sort of transportation to 'push against' in space. Right?

Not quite. We will try and dispose of that peculiar viewpoint here. Our preoccupation with rockets for space travel will probably amaze our descendants.

"Why use something as wasteful and noisy as a rocket," they will ask, "when there are simple, clean, efficient alternatives? Why didn't they use Beanstalks?"

The Age of Rockets may look to them like the Age of Dinosaurs. Let's try and see it through their eyes, beginning with the most basic principles.

* * *

A spacecraft, orbiting Earth around the equator just high enough to avoid the main effects of atmospheric drag, makes a complete revolution in about an hour and a half. If the Earth had no atmosphere, a spacecraft in a 'grazing orbit' would skim around just above the surface in 84.9 minutes. At the end of that time, it would not be above the same point on the Earth where it started. The Earth is rotating, too, and if the spacecraft revolves in the same direction as Earth it must go farther—about 2,370 kilometers, the distance that a point on the equator rotates in 84.9 minutes—before it again passes over the point where it began.

Now keep the spacecraft in a circular path above the equator, but instead of a grazing orbit, imagine that it travels 1,000 kilometers above the surface. Then the orbital period will be greater. It will now be about 106 minutes: the higher the orbit, the longer the period of revolution.

When the height of the spacecraft is 35,770 kilometers, the orbital period is 1,436 minutes, or one sidereal day (a solar day, the time that a point on the Earth takes to return to point exactly at the Sun, is 1,440 minutes). In other words, the spacecraft now takes just as long as the Earth to make one full revolution in space. Since the spacecraft is moving around at the same rate as the Earth, it seems to hover always above the same point on the equator.

Such a specialized orbit is called geostationary, because the satellite does not move relative to the Earth's surface. It is a splendid orbit for a communications satellite. There is no need for ground receiving antennae to track the satellite at all—it remains in one place in the sky. The term 'Clarkian orbit' has been proposed as an alternate to the cumbersome 'geostationary orbit,' in recognition of Arthur Clarke's original suggestion in 1945 that such orbits had unique potential for use in worldwide communications. Note, by the way, that a 24-hour period orbit does not have to be geostationary. An orbit whose plane is at an angle to the equator can be geosynchronous, with 24-hour period, but it moves up and down in latitude and oscillates in longitude during one day. The class of geosynchronous orbits includes all geostationary orbits.

A geosynchronous orbit has some other unusual features. It is at the distance from the Earth where gravitational and centrifugal accelerations on an orbiting object balance. To see what this means, suppose that you could erect a thin pole vertically on the equator. A long pole, and I do mean long. Suppose that you could extend it upwards over a hundred thousand kilometers, and it was strong and rigid enough that you could make it remain vertical. Then every part of the pole below the height of a geostationary orbit would feel a net downward force, because it is travelling too slowly for centrifugal acceleration to balance gravitational acceleration. On the other hand, every element of the pole beyond geostationary altitude would feel a net outward force. Those elements are travelling so fast that centrifugal force exceeds gravitational pull.

(Every mechanics textbook will point out that there are no such things as 'centrifugal forces'; there is only the gravitational force, curving the path of the orbiting body from its natural inclination to continue in a straight line. The centrifugal forces are fictitious forces, arising only as a consequence of the use of a rotating reference frame for calculations. But centrifugal forces are so convenient that everyone uses them, even if they don't exist! And when you move to an Einsteinian viewpoint you find that centrifugal forces now appear as real as any others. So much for theories.)

The higher that a section of the pole is above geostationary height, the greater the total outward pull on it. So if we make the pole just the right length, the total inward pull from all parts of the pole below geostationary height will exactly balance the outward pull from the higher sections above that height. Our pole will hang there, touching the Earth at the equator but not exerting any downward force on it. If you like, we can think of the pole as an enormously long satellite, in a geostationary orbit.

How long would such a pole have to be? If we were to make the pole of uniform cross-section, it would have to extend upwards a distance of about 143,700 kilometers. This result does not depend on the cross-sectional area of the pole, nor on the material from which it is made. It should be clear that in practice we would not choose to make a pole of uniform cross-section, since the downward pull that it must withstand is far greater up near geosynchronous height than it is near the Earth. At the higher point, the pole must support the weight of more than 35,000 kilometers of itself, whereas near Earth it supports only the weight hanging below it. From this, we would expect that the best design will be a tapered pole, with its thickest part at geostationary altitude where the pull on it is greatest.

The idea of a rigid pole is also misleading. We have seen that the only forces at work are tensions. It is thus more logical to think of the structure as a cable than a pole.

We now have the major features of our 'basic Beanstalk.' It will be a long, strong cable, extending from the surface of the Earth on the equator, out to beyond the geostationary orbit. It will be of the order of 144,000 kilometers long. We will use it as the load-bearing cable of a giant elevator, to send materials up to orbit and back. The structure will hang there in static equilibrium, revolving with the Earth. It is a bridge to space, replacing the old ferry-boat rockets.

That's the main concept. What could be simpler? We have—perhaps an understatement—left out a number of 'engineering details,' but we will look at those next.

DESIGNING THE BEANSTALK.

Let us list some of the questions that we must answer before we have a satisfactory Beanstalk design. The most important ones are as follows:

• What shape should the load-bearing cable have?

• What materials will it be made from?

• Where will we get those materials?

• Where will we build the Beanstalk, where will we attach it to Earth, and how will we get it installed?

• How will we use the main cable to move materials up and down from Earth?

• Will a Beanstalk be stable, against the gravitational forces from the Sun and Moon, against weather, and against natural events here on Earth?

• What are the advantages of a Beanstalk over rockets ?

• If we can get satisfactory answers to all these questions, when should we be able to build a Beanstalk?

We can offer definite answers to some of these questions; other answers can only be conjectures. Let's begin with the first, which is also the easiest.

Suppose that the load-bearing cable is made of a single material. Then the most efficient design is one in which the stress on the material, per unit area, is the same all the way along it. This means there is no wasted strength. With such an assumption, it is a simple exercise in statics to derive an equation for the cross-sectional area of the cable as a function of distance from the center of the Earth.

The result has the form:

(1) A(r)=A(R).exp(K.f(r/R).d/T.R)

(Note to Editor Baen. I know you told me not to use equations, but surely I'm entitled to at least one.)

In this equation, A(r) is the cross-sectional area of the cable at distance r from the center of the Earth, A(R), is the area at the distance R of a geostationary orbit, K is the gravitational constant for the Earth, d is the density of the material from which the cable is made, T is the tensile strength of the cable per unit area, and f(r/R) = 3/2 — R/r — (r/R)2/2.

Equation (1) tells us a great deal. First, we note that the variation of the cross-sectional area with distance does not depend on the tensile strength T directly, but only on the ratio T/d, which is the strength-to-weight ratio for the material. The substance from which we will build the Beanstalk must be strong, but more than that it should be strong and light.

Second, we can see that the shape of the cable is tremendously sensitive to the strength-to-weight ratio of the material, because this quantity occurs in the exponential of equation (1). To take a simple example, suppose that we have a material with a taper factor of 10,000. We define taper factor as the cross-sectional area of the cable at geostationary height, divided by the cross-sectional area at the surface of the Earth. So, for example, a cable that was one square meter in area at the bottom end would in this case be 10,000 square meters in area at geostationary height.

Now suppose that we could double the strength-to-weight ratio of the material we use for the cable. The taper ratio would drop from 10,000 to 100. If we could double the strength-to-weight ratio again, the taper ratio would reduce from 100 to 10.

It is clear that we should make the Beanstalk of the strongest possible material. Note than an infinitely strong material would need no taper at all.

Two other points are worth noting about the shape of the cable. It is easy to show that the function f(r/R) has its maximum value at r = R. This confirms the intuitive result, that the cable must be thickest at geostationary height, where the load is greatest since the cable must support all the downward weight between that height and the surface of the Earth. Second, a look at the change of f(r/R) with increasing r shows that the cross-sectional area decreases slowly above geostationary height. This is why we need a cable with a length that is much more than twice the distance to that height.

MATERIALS FOR THE BEANSTALK.

The cable that we need must be able to withstand a tension at least equal to its own weight from a height of 35,000 kilometers down to the surface. In practice, it must be a good deal stronger than that. We will certainly want to build in a reasonable safety factor, and we will want to hang other structures on the cable all the way down, to make it into a usable transportation system. So we expect that we will need to work with a very strong material, one with an unusually high strength-to-weight ratio. Of course, if one does not have a material that is quite as strong as needed, one can try and compensate by increasing the taper factor, but we have seen that this would be a very inefficient way to go. Halving the strength of materials would square the taper factor. The incentive to work with the strongest possible materials is very large.

The tension in the cable at a height of 35,770 kilometers, where upward and downward forces exactly balance, is less than the weight of a similar length of 35,770 kilometers of cable down here on Earth, for two reasons. The downward gravitational force decreases as the square of the distance from the center of the Earth, and the upward centrifugal force increases linearly with that distance. Both these effects tend to decrease the tension that the cable must support. A straightforward calculation shows that the maximum tension in a cable of constant cross-section will be equal to the weight of 4,940 kilometers of such cable, here on Earth. This is in a sense a 'worst case' calculation, since we know that the cable will be designed to taper. However, the need for a safety factor means that we need to be conservative, and the figure of 4,940 kilometers gives us a useful standard in terms of which we can calibrate the strength of available materials.

The definition we have chosen of a cable's strength, namely, how much length of its own substance it must support under Earth's gravity, is used quite widely. For a particular material, the length of itself the cable will support is called the 'support length' or 'characteristic length.' It is particularly handy because of the way in which the strength of materials is usually described, in terms of the tons weight per square centimeter (or per square inch) that they will support. (It would be more desirable, scientifically speaking, to give strength in dynes per square centimeter, or in newtons per square meter. These measures are independent of the Earth's surface gravity. But historically, pounds per square inch and kilos per square centimeter came first and things are still given that way in most of the handbooks. Note also that we are concerned only with tensile strength—how strong the material is when you pull it. Compressive and shear strengths are quite different, and a material may be very strong in compression and weak in tension. A building brick is a good example of this.)

Against our requirement of a support length of 4,940 kms, how well do the substances that we have available today measure up?

Not too well. Now we see why no one has yet built a Beanstalk. Table 1 shows the strengths of currently available materials, their densities, and their support lengths. (The physical data that I am using here is drawn, wherever possible, from the "Handbook of Chemistry and Physics," 57th Edition. It is one of the most widely available reference texts and should be in any reasonable library.)

TABLE 1

STRENGTH OF MATERIALS

Material

Tensile

Strength

(kg/cm^2)

Density

(gm/cm^3)

Support

Length

(km)

Lead

200

11.4

0.18

Gold

1,400

19.3

0.73

Aluminum

2,000

2.7

7.4

Cast iron

3,500

7.8

4.5

Carbon steel

7,000

7.8

9.0

Manganese steel

16,000

7.8

21.

Drawn tungsten

35,000

19.3

18.

Drawn steel wire

42,000

7.8

54.

Iron whisker

126,000

7.8

161.

Silicon whisker(SiC)

210,000

3.2

660.

Graphite whisker

210,000

2.0

1,050

Fictionite

2,000,000

2.0

10.000

Not surprisingly, we won't be trying to make a Beanstalk support cable from lead. As we can see from the table, even the best steel wire that we can find has a support length only one hundredth of what we need. The last entry in the table, Fictionite, would be perfect but for one drawback: it doesn't exist yet. The strongest materials that we have today, graphite and silicon carbide whiskers, still fall badly short of our requirements (for Earth, that is. A Mars Beanstalk has a minimum support length of only 973 kms. We could make one of those nicely using graphite whiskers).

Does this mean that we have a hopeless situation? It depends what confidence you have in the advance of technology. Table 2 lists the strength of materials that have been available at different dates in human history. There is some inevitable arbitrariness in making a table like this, since no one really knows when the Hittites began to smelt iron, and there must have been poor control of times, temperatures and purity of raw materials in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age. All these factors have a big effect on the tensile strength of the products.

It is tempting to try and fit some kind of function to the values in the table, and see when we will have a material available with a support length of 5,000 kms. or better. It is also very dangerous to even think of such a thing. For example, consider a fit to the data of the form: Strength = B/(t - T), where B and T are to be determined by the data, and t is time in years before the year 2000 A.D. This fits the data fairly well if we choose B = 525,000 and T = 17.5 years. Unfortunately, such a form becomes infinite when t = T. If we were to believe such a fit, we would expect to have infinitely strong materials available to us some time in 1982!

TABLE 2

PROGRESS IN STRENGTH OF MATERIALS

AS A FUNCTION OF TIME

Year

Available material

Tensile

Strength

(kg/cm^2)

1500 B.C.

Bronze

1,00

1850

Iron

3,500

1950

Special steels

16,000

1970

Drawn steel

42,000

1980

Graphite and silicon whiskers

210,000

Note: Years given indicate the dates when the materials could first be reliably produced in production quantities.

Not surprisingly, extrapolation of a trend without using physical models can lead us to ridiculous results. A much more plausible way of predicting the potential strength of materials is available to us, based on the known structure of the atom. In chemical reactions, only the outermost electrons of the atom participate, and it is the coupling of these outer electrons that decides the strength of chemical bonds. These bonds in turn set bounds on the possible strength of a material. Thus, so far as we are concerned the nucleus of the atom—which is where almost all the atomic mass resides—contributes nothing: strength of coupling, and hence material strength, comes only from those outer electrons.

In Table 3 we give the strengths of the chemical bonds for different pairs of atoms. These strengths, divided by the molecular weight of the appropriate element pair, decide the ultimate strength-to-weight ratio for a material entirely composed of that pair of elements. The final column of the table shows the support length that this strength-to-weight ratio implies, using the carbon-carbon bond of the graphite whisker as the reference case.

TABLE 3

POTENTIAL STRENGTH OF MATERIALS BASED

ON THE STRENGTH OF CHEMICAL BONDS

Element pairs

Molecular

weight *

Chemical

bond strength

(kcal/mole)

Support

length

(km)

Silicon-carbon

40

104

455

Carbon-carbon

24

145

1,050

Fluorine-hdrogen

20

136

1,190

Boron-hydrogen

11

80.7

1,278

Nitrogen-nitrogen

28

225.9

1,418

Carbon-oxygen

28

257.3

1,610

Hydrogen-hydrogen

2

104.2

9,118

Positronium-positronium

1/918.6

104

16,700,000

* Some of these element pairs do not exist as stable molecules, but can exist in a crystal lattice structure.

** We are using the support length of the graphite whisker as the standard of strength provided by the chemical bonds.

Examining the Table, we see that the hydrogen-hydrogen bond has by far the greatest potential strength. In this bond, every electron participates in the bonding process (each atom has only one!) and the hydrogen nucleus contains no neutrons, which offer added weight without adding anything to the possible strength. A substance that consisted of pure solid hydrogen could in principle have a support length of more than 9,000 kilometers—very similar to the Fictionite of Table 1.

Even this strength is very modest if we are willing to look at a rather more exotic composition for our cables. Positronium is an 'atom' consisting of an electron and a positron. The positron takes the place of the usual proton in the hydrogen atom, but it has a far smaller mass. Positronium has been made in the laboratory, but it is unstable with a very short lifetime. If, however, positronium could be stabilized against decay, perhaps by the application of intense electromagnetic fields, then the resulting positronium-positronium bond should have a strength comparable with that of the hydrogen-hydrogen bond, and a far smaller molecular weight. It will have a support length of 16,700,000 kilometers—the taper of a Beanstalk made from such a material would be unmeasurably small. This would be true even for a Beanstalk on Jupiter, where the strength requirement is higher than for any other planet of the Solar System.

The positronium cable is likely to remain unavailable to us for some time yet. Even the solid hydrogen cable offers us the practical problem that we don't know how to build it. Rather than insisting on any particular material for our Beanstalk, it is safer and more reasonable to make a less specific statement: the strength of materials available to us has been increasing steadily throughout history, with the most striking advance coming in this century. It seems plausible to look for at least an increase of another order of magnitude in strength in the next hundred years. Such an advance in materials technology would make the construction of a Beanstalk quite feasible by the middle of the next century, at least from the point of view of strength of materials. It could come far sooner.

Something with the properties of Fictionite would do very nicely. The taper ratio would be only 1.6, and a Beanstalk that was one meter in diameter at the lower end and of circular cross-section could support a load of nearly sixteen million tons.

WHERE TO BUILD THE BEANSTALK.

We have talked about what we will make the Beanstalk out of, but we have not discussed where we will find those materials. The answer to such a question is provided when we look at how we will build it.

For several reasons, the 'Tower of Babel' technique—start here on Earth and just build upwards—is not the way to go. The structure would be in compression, not tension, all the way up to beyond geostationary altitude, and we picked our material for its tensile strength. Worse still, structures in compression can buckle, which is a form of mechanical failure that does not apply to materials under tension.

Clearly, we will somehow begin at the top, with materials that we find up there. But where at the top? This is worth thinking about in more detail.

To a first approximation, the Earth is a sphere and its external gravity field is the same as that of a point mass. To a good second approximation, it is an oblate spheroid, with symmetry about the axis of rotation (the polar axis). The third order approximation gets much messier. Not only does the Earth "wobble" a bit about its axis of rotation, but there are fine inhomogeneities in the internal structure that show up as 'gravity anomalies' in the external gravitational field. These gravity anomalies are the deviations of the field from that which would be produced by a regular spheroid of revolution.

The anomalies are small—only a couple of milli-gals—but they are important. (In geodesy, a gal is not something that a male geodesist would like to snuggle up to; it is a unit of acceleration, equal to 1 centimeter per second per second. A milligal is a thousandth of that. Earth's surface gravity is about 980 gals. If the Earth's gravity field were to change by one milligal, you would weigh differently by about one four-hundredth of an ounce. Even a change of a full gal—a thousand milligals—would not be noticed.)

If we look at these small gravity anomalies in the region of the orbit of a geostationary satellite, we find that they give rise to local maxima and minima of the gravitational potential. Satellites in such orbits tend to 'drift' to where the potential has its nearest local maximum, and to oscillate about such a position. For this particular location (35,770 kilometers up, in the plane of the equator) these are the stable points of the gravitational field. At first sight, this looks like the best place to start to build your Beanstalk. You could put your source of materials there, and begin to extrude load-bearing cable up and down simultaneously, so as to keep a balance between the gravitational and centrifugal forces on the whole cable. Doing this, you might expect to be able to keep the cable Earth-stationary, always over the same fixed point of the surface.

Unfortunately, the gravitational potential is not so well-behaved. The positions of the stable points, the places where the potential has its local maxima, depend on the distance from the center of the Earth.

As you begin to extrude cable upwards and downwards, parts of the cable will move into regions where they are no longer at a local maximum of the potential. There will then be a strong tendency for the cable to "walk." It will begin to move steadily around the equator (and off the equator!), adjusting its position to the average of the gravity potential maxima encountered at all heights where a piece of the cable is present.

Such behavior is—at the very least—an annoyance. It means that you must allow for such motion in the design and construction, and you must tether the cable at the ground end when you have finished.

Such a tether is not a bad thing. We shall see later that it is an essential part of the Beanstalk design if we want a usable structure, one that can carry cargo and people up and down it. However, you can't tether the Stalk until you have finished building it. So we have still not answered the question, where do you do that construction? Remember, the geostationary location is full of other satellites—the communications satellites sit out there, and some of the weather satellites. It would be intolerable for the Beanstalk, half-built, to come drifting along through their lebensraum until it was finally long enough to tether.

What other options do we have? Well, there is the "bootstrap" method. In this, you fabricate a very thin Beanstalk, tether it, and use that to stop your main Beanstalk from wandering about during the construction.

My own favorite is more ambitious than a construction from geostationary orbit. You build all your Beanstalk well away from Earth, out at L-4 or L-5. When you have it all done, you fly it down. You arrange your timing so that the lower end arrives at a pre-prepared landing and tether site on the equator at the same time as the upper end makes a rendezvous with a ballast weight, way out beyond geostationary height. Once the Beanstalk has been tethered, the problem of a stable position for the orbit is not serious—it merely means that the Stalk doesn't follow the exact local vertical on the way up, because it tries to adapt to the mean gravity gradient all the way along its length.

Building the Stalk well away from Earth helps the problem of material supply. We certainly don't want to use Earth materials for construction, since getting them up there would be an enormous task. Fortunately, two of the promising substances that we found in the table of strong materials are graphite and silicon carbide. Coincidentally, two of the main categories of asteroid are termed the carbonaceous and the silicaceous types. They can be the source of our raw materials.

The way to build the Beanstalk is now apparent. We fly a smallish (a couple of kilometers in diameter) asteroid in from the Asteroid Belt and settle it at L-4. We build a solar power satellite or a fusion plant out there, too, to provide the energy that we need. Then we fabricate the Beanstalk, the whole thing: load-bearing cable, superconducting power cables, and drive train (more on these in a moment). And we fly it on down to Earth.

The final descent speed need not be high. We can use the inertia of the whole length of the Stalk to slow the arrival of its lower end.

The demand on the raw material resources of Earth in this whole operation will be minimal.

USING THE BEANSTALK.

A couple of paragraphs back, I threw in reference to superconducting power cables and drive train. These are the key to making the Beanstalk useful. Let us look in more detail at the whole structure of the Stalk.

We will have a load-bearing cable, perhaps a couple of meters across at the lower end, stretching up from the equator to out past geosynchronous altitude. It will be tethered at its lower end to prevent it from moving about around the Earth. It will be strong enough to support a load of millions of tons. What else do we need to do to make it useful?

First, we will strengthen the tether, to make sure that it can stand a pull of many millions of tons without coming loose from Earth. Next, we will go out to the far end of the cable, and hang a really big ballast weight there. The ballast weight pulls outwards, so that the whole cable is now under an added tension, balancing the pull of the ballast against the tether down on Earth.

We really need that tension.

Why? Well, suppose that we want to send a million tons of cargo up the Beanstalk. The first thing we will do is hang it on the cable near the ground tether. If the tension down near the lower end is a couple of million tons, when we hang the cargo on the cable we simply reduce the upward force on the tether from two million tons to one million tons. The cargo itself is providing some of the downward pull needed to balance the upward tug of the ballast at the far end. The whole system is still stable.

But if we had used a smaller ballast weight, enough to give us a pull at the tether of only half a million tons, we would be in trouble. If we hang a million tons of cargo on the cable, it will pull the ballast weight downwards. There is just not enough ballast to provide the required upward pull. We must provide an initial ballast weight that is sufficient to give a tension more than any weight that we will ever try and send up the cable.

There is another advantage to a massive ballast weight. We can use a shorter cable. We can hang a really big ballast at, say, a hundred thousand kilometers out, and it will not be necessary to have more cable beyond that point. The ballast weight provides the upward pull that balances the downward pull of the cable below geostationary height. We have to be a little careful here. A ballast that has a mass of ten million tons will not be enough to allow you to raise a weight of ten million tons up from Earth. The ballast will not pull outwards as hard as the weight pulls downwards, unless it is out at a distance where the net outward acceleration due to combined centrifugal and gravitational forces is one gee. This requires that the ballast be more than 1.8 million kilometers out from Earth—far past the Moon's distance of 400,000 kilometers.

We conclude from this that the ballast will be a massive one. This is no real problem. After all, even a modest sized asteroid, a kilometer across, will mass anything up to a billion tons.

Once we have a taut cable, suitably anchored, we need a power source for the activities on the Beanstalk. We put a solar power satellite or a fusion plant out at the far end and run cables all the way down, attaching them to the main loadbearing cable. Superconducting cables make sense, but we will have to be sure that they are suitably insulated—near-Earth space isn't that cold. But perhaps by the time we build the Stalk we will have superconductors that operate up to higher critical temperatures. The ones available now remain superconductors only up to about 23 degrees Kelvin.

There is a fringe benefit to running cables down the Beanstalk. We can carry down power from space without worrying about the effects of microwave radiation on Earth—which is a serious worry with present solar power satellite designs.

Once we have the power cables installed, we can build the drive train, again attaching it to the load cable for its support. The easiest system for a drive train is probably a linear synchronous motor. The principles and the practice for that are well-established, which means it will all be off-the-shelf fixtures—except that we will want fifty to a hundred thousand kilometers of drive ladder. But remember, all this construction work will be done before we fly the Beanstalk in for a landing, and the abundant raw materials of the asteroid at L-4 will still be available to us.

Assuming that we drive cars up and down the Stalk at the uniform speed of 300 kilometers an hour, the journey up to synchronous altitude will take five days. That's a lot slower than a rocket, but it will be a lot more restful—and look at some of the other advantages.

First, we will have a completely non-polluting system, one that uses no reaction mass at all. This may appear a detail, until you look at the effects of frequent rocket launches on the delicate balance of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Earth.

Second, we will have a potentially energy-free system. Any energy that you use in the drive train in taking a mass up to synchronous height can in principle be recovered by making returning masses provide energy to the drive train as they descend to Earth. Even allowing for inevitable friction and energy conversion losses, a remarkably efficient system will be possible.

In some ways, the Stalk offers something even better than an energy-free system. When a mass begins its ascent from the surface of the Earth, it is moving with the speed of a point on the Earth's equator—a thousand miles an hour. When it reaches synchronous height, it will be travelling at 6,600 miles an hour. And if, from that point on, you let it "fall outwards" to the end of the Stalk, it will be launched on its way with a speed of more than 33,000 miles an hour, relative to the Earth. That's enough to throw it clear out of the Solar System.

Where did all the energy come from to speed up the mass?

The natural first answer might be, from the drive train. That is not the case. The energy comes from the rotational energy of the Earth itself. When you send a mass up the Beanstalk, you slow the Earth in its rotation by an infinitesimal amount, and when you send something back down, you speed it up a little. We don't need to worry about the effects on the planet, though. You'd have to take an awful lot of mass up there before you could make an appreciable effect on the rotation rate of Earth. The total rotational energy of Earth amounts to only about one thousandth of the planet's gravitational self-energy, but that is still an incredibly big number. We can use the Beanstalk without worrying about the effects that it will have on the Earth.

The converse of this is much less obvious. What about the effects of the Earth on the Beanstalk? Will we have to be worried about weather, earthquakes, and other natural events?

Earthquakes sound nasty. We certainly want the tether to be secure. If it came loose the whole Beanstalk would shoot off out into space, following the ballast. However, it is quite easy to protect ourselves. We simply arrange that the tether be held down by a mass that is itself a part of the lower end of the Stalk. Then the tether is provided by the simple weight of the bottom of the Beanstalk, and that will be a stable situation as long as the force at that point remains "down"—which will certainly be true unless something were to blow the whole Earth apart; in which case, we might expect to have other things to worry about.

Weather should be no problem. The Stalk presents so small a cross-sectional area compared with its strength that no storm we can imagine would trouble it. The same is true for perturbations from the gravity of the Sun and the Moon. Proper design of the Stalk will avoid any resonance effects, in which the period of the forces on the structure might coincide with any of its natural vibration frequencies.

In fact, by far the biggest danger we can conceive of is a man-made one—sabotage. A bomb, exploding halfway up the Beanstalk, would create unimaginable havoc in both the upper and lower sections of the structure. That would be the thing against which all security measures would be designed.

WHEN CAN WE BUILD A BEANSTALK?

We need two things before we can go ahead with a Beanstalk construction project: a strong enough material, and an off-Earth source of supplies. Both of these ought to be available in the next fifty to one hundred years. The general superiority of Beanstalks to rockets is so great that I expect to see the prototype built by the year 2050.

I do not regard this estimate as very adventuresome. It is certainly less so than Orville Wright's statement, when in 1911 he startled the world by predicting that we would eventually have passenger air service between cities as much as a hundred miles apart.

Unless we blow ourselves up, bog down in the Prox-mire, or find some other way to begin the slide back to the technological Dark Ages, normal engineering progress will give us the tools that we need to build a Beanstalk, by the middle of the next century. The economic impetus to deploy those tools will be provided by a recognition of the value of the off-Earth energy and raw materials, and it will be with us long before then.

This discussion seems to me to be so much a part of an inevitable future that I feel obliged to speculate a little further, just to make the subject matter less pedestrian. Let us look further out.

Non-synchronous Beanstalks have already been proposed for the Earth. These are shorter Stalks, non-tethered, that move around the Earth in low orbits and dip their ends into Earth's atmosphere and back out again a few times a revolution. They are a delightful and new idea that was developed in detail in a 1977 paper by Hans Moravec. The logical next step is free-space Beanstalks. These are revolving about their own center of mass, and they can be used to provide momentum transfer to spacecraft. They thus form a handy way to move materials about the Solar System.

Look ahead now a few thousand years. Civilization has largely moved off Earth, into free-space colonies. There are many thousands of these, each self-sustaining and self-contained, constructed from materials available in the Asteroid Belt. Although they are self-supporting, travel among them will be common, for commerce and recreation. Naturally enough, this travel will be accomplished without the use of reaction mass, via an extensive system of free-space Beanstalks which provide the velocity increases and decreases needed to move travellers around from colony to colony. There will be hundreds of thousands of these in a spherical region centered on the Sun, and they will all be freely orbiting.

The whole civilization will be stable and organized, but there will be one continuing source of perturbation and danger. Certain singularities of the gravitational field exist, disturbing the movements of the colonists and their free transfer through the Solar System.

The singularities sweep their disorderly way around the Sun, upsetting the orbits of the colonies and the Beanstalks with their powerful gravity fields and presenting a real threat of capture to any who get too close to them.

It seems inevitable that, in some future Forum on one of the colonies, a speaker will one day arise to voice the will of the people. He will talk about the problem presented by the singularities, about the need to remove them. About the danger they offer, and about the inconvenience they cause. And finally, as a newly-arisen Cato he may mimic the words of his predecessor to pronounce judgment on one or more of those gravity singularities of the Solar System, the planets.

"Terra delenda est"—Earth must be destroyed!

BEANSTALK TIME—A FINAL NOTE.

Beanstalks, originally called skyhooks, are an idea of the 1960's whose time may at last have come. They are used as important elements of at least two novels published in 1979, Arthur Clarke's "The Fountains Of Paradise" and my own "The Web Between The Worlds." I suspect that they will become a standard element of most projected futures, as a rational alternative to the rocketry that has served sf writers so long and so well.

Afterword.

This was the first semi-technical account of Beanstalk construction (principles and design factors) to appear in print. I know it will not be the last one.

I wrote the article for two reasons. The first was to get the idea of the Beanstalk (or Skyhook, Orbital Tower, Space Elevator, Cosmic Funicular—all the same thing) into wider general circulation. As I mentioned in the Afterword to "Skystalk," most of that story had to be taken up with the description of the Stalk itself. Little space was left over to go far beyond the basic idea. Once the concept is as familiar to the reader as the rocket, though, we'll be able to go a lot further, to build on the idea and write stories that are much more speculative and intellectually demanding. Once you accept Beanstalks, a dozen things are possible on the interplanetary and even interstellar scale, and most of them have a good story in them. In another couple of years we'll be able to write those stories.

That was the other reason that I wrote this article. When black holes became an idea familiar to the general reader, is seemed as though every sf writer rushed off to his or her typewriter. The result was a great flood of black hole stories, many of them scientific gibberish. I would like to do my bit to stop the same thing happening to Beanstalks. No Beanstalks tethered at the North Pole, please, and no Beanstalks on Venus or Mercury unless you are willing to make them a million kilometers long.

TRANSITION TEAM

Thomas Pringle,

Department of Internal Security,

L-5 Colony.

Dear Tom,

I'm sending you under separate transmission a bunch of references on the question of critical phenomena in biological systems. Without more details from you, they are the best answer I can offer to your question about the relevance of'critical mass' in group-behavioral patterns. A better term, by the way, would be critical times —there are lots of examples of those in complex organisms. Major changes of state often occur abruptly in a particular, well-defined period (examples: birth, death, metamorphosis).

Now, stop screwing around and tell me what's happening up there. All the reports back here tell us everything is going marvellously. Are we getting a snow job?

I can't tell you how pleased I was to hear from you. It's been a long time.

Love,

Beth.

* * *

Professor Elizabeth S. Lockwood,

Department of Behavioral Sciences,

Stanford University,

Stanford, California.

Dear Beth,

José Vilas promised to get this package to you without opening it or telling anybody about it. He wouldn't even tell me how he'd get it in through Decontamination and Customs.

You aren't getting a snow job. So far as all the usual indicators go, this colony is operating exactly as planned. Better than planned—we've had twenty percent fewer fatalities than we projected, and the mortality rate for new-borns is down to less than one in three. The first space-borns are reaching puberty a little ahead of schedule. What we didn't anticipate—a pleasant surprise—was the earlier maturity in intelligence. The space-borns are running out at an average IQ of over 140, Earthnorm. We think that's due to the general speeding-up of development, and the adult IQ's should level off at an average of about 120 (we started with good stock).

Anyway, by any of the standard measures, including all those that we send back to Earth in the colony progress descriptions, we are in great shape here. What alarms me is a couple of non-standard indicators. Take a look at this batch of school reports, and tell me what you think. I've arranged for you to receive the originals, rather than data-stream copies, because I assume that you are still a nut on handwriting analysis. Should I be worried, or am I just getting paranoid?

You are quite right, ten years is far too long. I look in the mirror now and wonder what happened to the hair you used to run your fingers through.

Love,

Tom.

* * *

Dear Tom,

You do have a problem—a big one. Send me all the information you have on the physical description of the space-borns, as up-to-date as possible. Also send me details on the dating/mating habits of all children on L-5 between ages nine and fourteen. Also, tell me how I can get medical records for Skylab, Shuttle and Space Tug crews. Send soon.

Love, Beth.

* * *

ELIZABETH S LOCKWOOD. I AM ARRIVING SPACE TUG FLIGHT 14D. DON'T GO ANYWHERE NEXT FOUR DAYS. NEED UPDATE YOU ON FACTS, HEAR YOUR IDEAS. THOMAS PRINGLE. 6 JUNE '16.

* * *

"This is just a sample, Tom. Are many of the others like this?"

I waved down at the sheaf of papers sitting in my lap, and looked again at the sprawling, unformed calligraphy of the top sheet.

"Mostly," said Tom. "I sent you one report from each grade. A lot of the others read like that. I picked out the most literate and easiest to follow. Do you need more, Beth?"

He was sprawled on my redwood-frame settee, briefcase and travel case open beside him. Outside, the Portola Valley sunset was a glare of fuming brown and red—the hydrocarbons were bad tonight. Tom was looking out there in horror and disgust. I had grown used to it, but I couldn't deny it had grown worse in the past ten years. When had I last dared to sit out on the porch?

Tom looked tired, handsome as ever but bowed down by the unfamiliar weight. Even though I knew it was the effects of the L-5 environment, I couldn't get over his appearance. He still had the lean, lightly-muscled body of a twenty-two year old (he was right, though, about his hair—it was receding off the temples and creating a sandy widow's peak). I was suddenly super-conscious of my own encroaching wrinkles and crows-feet, the sagging (real or imagined?) of my breasts, and the slow betrayal of my knees. Not for the first time, I took a complete survey of myself, from the top of my head (signs of grey at the crown) to my feet (still doing fine). Odd behavior from a behavioral scientist? Unfortunately, no—physician, heal thyself.

"I don't need any more than you sent me to tell that things aren't right," I said. "When a first-grader answers the question 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' with 'I want to be a real person,' my hair starts to stand on end. Did you read that sixth grader's end-of-term project? 'The History Of The L-5 Colony'—it came across as a dirge of mistrust and betrayal."

"Why do you think that I sent it to you, Beth? Look, there are other things that I didn't want to say until I saw you in person. There have been six deaths in the post-puberty group. They were up near the Colony Hub and they might—just conceivably—have all been accidents. But I doubt it, that would be too much of a coincidence. Beth, all this seems to have happened so quickly."

"It looks that way—but I want to see some of the older school reports. There may be patterns that can only be seen with hindsight."

"I'll have the old stuff pulled and take a look as soon as I get back. What on earth made you ask about the dating patterns of the space-borns? When I saw that in your last message, I decided I'd better get down here quickly."

"I'd hoped you wanted to see my baby blue eyes again," I said coyly. Then I winced, inside. I hadn't carried that off at all well. It was supposed to sound light and humorous, instead it came across as a statement of fact.

"Tom," I hurried on. "When kids are self-hating or self-doubting, their loving goes off-balance, too. I didn't believe that the children who wrote those reports could have normal dating patterns. What are they doing up there?"

He rubbed his eyes wearily. I wondered what crazy diurnal rhythm he was on. As I recalled it, the L-5 Colony kept Greenwich Civil Time.

"The space-borns don't date," he said at last. "At least, if they do, it's nowhere where we can observe it. They've developed past puberty, physically, but they aren't going in for any of the usual 'courtship rituals'—is that the right phrase? They just don't do it."

"What do they do instead? They must do something with their free time."

Tom knuckled at his eyes again. It must be well past midnight for his biological clock.

"They spend lots of time in the low gravity sections, in by the Hub," he said. "We don't monitor them there. Privacy is very important in the Colony. But I'm sure they never flirt or make passes when they're with the rest of us, in the outer sections."

He leaned forward and put his hand on my knee. "Look, Beth, that's the real reason I came to see you. Will you go back with me, and take a look at what's going on? I'm sure we've missed something basic."

"To the Colony? Tom, I'm flattered. Tremendously flattered. But don't you have your own specialists up there?"

"Quite a few. But none of them is Elizabeth Lockwood." He looked at me sadly, and I suddenly thought back to the first time we had met. "Beth, we need a head start," he said desperately. "People down here will find out eventually, but we don't want to say we're in trouble until we have a solution. There are enough jackasses in the Government talking about the 'waste of funds' for the Colony. What better use can they suggest for money? More war, or more welfare?"

"Tom, what time is it?"

The non-sequitur knocked him off balance. He looked at his watch. "Three a.m., according to me. Why do you ask?"

"You're running down. Time change, plus the higher gravity. You need rest."

"The tyranny of the clock. You're right, I'm wilting." He grimaced at me, then winked. " 'Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make perpetual day.' We have that perpetual day, Beth, up in L-5—apart from an occasional eclipse."

I flew back again over fourteen years. Tom had been reminded of our first meeting, too. We had been at the University Dramatic Society, for a rehearsal of 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.' Through the next four years, our inside language had drawn from Marlowe and Shakespeare.

I suddenly felt awkward and uncomfortable. Our reunion had been wonderful, so far, but the next step wouldn't be easy. There was no way to unmake the past, or step back through a ten-year gulf. In the old days, I would have said something like 'Lovers, to bed, 'tis almost fairy time,' and Tom would have replied, 'Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.' That wouldn't work any more. We had changed, and although Tom still looked the same, things wouldn't be easy. I felt the joy of an old wound waking.

Tom saved the day. He passed out—not completely, but near enough so that the only question I had to answer was whether or not I should try and remove his shoes. I did, dimmed the lights and went for a blanket to cover him.

I had already answered Tom's question. He had devoted his working life to the Colony. There was no way I could refuse to help him in the struggle. I would tell him when he awoke—which would be quite a while, by the look of him.

* * *

I would have liked to spend the time to the L-5 Colony studying the children's reports in more detail, but the distractions were too great. First there was Tom, sitting beside me, thin and etiolated as dahlia tubers that germinated too early in my cellar. I guessed that he had lost fifty percent or more of his muscle structure through living so long in low-gee. Then there was the space tug itself, spiralling lazily away from parking orbit and lofting us out to the Libration Point colony.

At the halfway mark, I had the chance to look out of the viewing port for the first time. Earth was a giant blue-white half-moon, occulting four or five degrees of the bright star-field. I tried to imagine myself as a space-born child, never knowing anything more of Earth than that abstraction of a mottled ball in the sky. I couldn't make the switch in viewpoint. I understood now why the education schedule for space-born children included a couple of years of 'finishing school' back on Earth.

The Colony itself remained invisible for the whole trip. By the time we were near enough to see it, the angle ahead was too narrow for it to be visible through the side-facing ports. My first sighting was of the central hub, moving past the port just a few yards from my eyes as the tug moved to a docking with the stationary spindle of the big cylinder. It was a disappointment. I had imagined us swimming slowly up to the Colony, seeing it steadily growing through the viewports. It occurred to me that the frequent television shots of such a docking must either be a simulation or a view from a non-standard tug with extra (and functionally unnecessary) forward-looking ports.

"We're here," said Tom, as there was a final bump of the docking. "Let's get you cleared through disease control, then I expect you're ready for a rest."

"I'm all right." I suddenly realized I really was all right, and smiled. "You know, I think I actually like free fall. I thought it was supposed to make me feel all sick."

"It varies with the individual. I've known people who were sick the whole time they were in low-gee. We even had to ship a few of them back, or they would have died. You seem to be one of the lucky ones. Anyway, you'll have your sleeping quarters on the outer rim. Gravity there is almost a fifth of a gee."

"Gravity?"

"Oh, don't be a pedant. Centrifugal force, if you prefer to call it that. Work it out for yourself. The Colony has a radius of three hundred meters, and it turns once every eighty seconds. You'll feel almost as light on the outer rim as you would on the Moon. It's less now than it used to be—I can remember when we had one revolution a minute. Mind you, if the space-borns had their way we'd be slowing the spin a lot further than that."

There it was again, nagging away at the edge of my attention. This time I caught it. Tom always seemed to refer to the 'space-borns.' Never to the 'kids' or 'children.' But all the children on the L-5 Colony had been born in space. There had been neither incentive nor equipment to ship infants up from Earth. I tucked the odd fact away in my mental files—the files that Tom had joshed me on so much in our student days. Was it my fault if I didn't forget things? People who envied me never knew how much misery it had caused me.

Tom was looking at me alertly. He hadn't lost his old knack of reading a lot of my thoughts from my face.

"Anything you want to do before the sleep-period?" he asked. "I'd like to show you around here, then get in my session in the exercise room."

"Today? Surely you don't need to exercise now."

"Every day, sick or healthy. You ought to do it, too, while you're here. It's voluntary, of course. But didn't you read the Skylab and Spacelab reports that you asked for—the medical records?"

"I read bits of them. I wanted to see how accurately your student had reported the reality in her term paper. She did a good job."

"If you read past the cover, you know that there's a rapid calcium loss unless you exercise hard and have adequate gravity. About a seventh of a gee seems to be enough—lucky thing, or we'd have real problems with the lunar bases. You don't need to worry about the exercise much, because you won't be here more than a week or two. But I daren't skip my own conditioning."

As we spoke, the final docking had been completed and the hatches opened. The air smelled odd, as though there were clumps of rotting seaweed not too far away. It was tolerable enough, but I suspected that the hydroponics systems needed a little fine tuning.

The decontamination process turned out to be long and tedious. We were sprayed and irradiated, stark naked in zero gee, with a fine variety of liquids and colored lights. There was no time to complain about loss of dignity when we emerged. We were whisked out, pronounced suitably sterile, and issued Colony clothing. I looked at mine with distaste.

"You don't dress for sex appeal here, do you, Tom?"

He shrugged. "Dress is optional. Quite a few people prefer to go without. Most of the rest make their own. We've had a devil of a time getting the space-borns to wear anything at all when they're not in formal training sessions. We have good temperature control all over the Colony, so clothing is all a matter of taste, anyway."

We set off along a long corridor, a gentle spiral that turned steadily out from the central hub towards the outer living quarters. We proceeded by a combination of walking, drifting, and 'falling'—it was slightly downhill all the way. After a few minutes I began to feel a bit disoriented. I stopped, and the feeling left me. Tom looked at me and laughed.

"Sorry, Beth. I should have warned you. There's a slight gravity gradient—a change in effective gravity—as we move out. If you don't like it we can slow down."

"It's all right," I said. "Now that I know what it is. Tom, why does the corridor spiral round like this, instead of going straight out like a spoke?"

"Some of the corridors are straight," he said. "I picked this one to help you get your space-legs."

I stood still, turned and looked at him.

"Oh, all right," he said. "Damn it, Beth, I forgot about your built-in lie detector. We always bring people this way, the first time on the Colony. We try and impress them with the size of it. I did it out of habit. It's a four kilometer trip this way, before we get to the outer rim."

"I am impressed. No wonder it took fifteen years to build this."

"It would have taken twice that long, if Bjorling hadn't discovered the surficial metal deposits on the Moon. The whole project is ten years ahead of schedule. We could start work on the second Colony, the big one, tomorrow if we had the funds."

There was a defensive tone in his voice. Inevitable, perhaps, for one who had spent so many years of his life developing and defending a colony whose existence came up for constant questioning in government budget circles.

"Think you'll get money for that second colony, Tom?" I said. I was sorry I had asked, before the words were all spoken.

His shrug was loose-jointed, a rippling movement that he could never have managed back on Earth.

"We have to get it, Beth," he said. "This is the future, out here. There's no way that we'll go back to the mess down there. Nine billion in the madhouse, and more every second. That's one reason I came and asked your help. We've made space our home. No matter what the problem is here with the space-borns, we have to lick it and keep the momentum going for the second Colony."

"You won't have much time, Tom, if there are any more deaths—particularly if you get one that's definitely a suicide."

"I know." His voice was bleak.

Ahead of us, the white fluorescent lights that ran the length of the corridor broke to a blue, rectangular pattern. Tom pointed to it.

"There's the exit to the outer rim. How are you feeling? If you still have enough energy for a couple of quick introductions I'd like you to meet the head of the Education Department, Theo Hendon. Are you up to it?"

"Let's not waste any time. I'm ready to meet people now."

Tom sounded more tired than I did but if he could take it, I could. I squeezed his arm (thinner now than my own) and we went on into the living-quarters, set around the perimeter of the cylinder.

I had expected to see some of the space-born children in the quarters when we emerged. After all, they made up more than half of the Colony's three thousand people. There were many people in the corridors, but no sign of any children.

"They prefer their own choice of recreation habitat," said Tom, in answer to my question. "We try to get them to stay here, but we don't have time or people to keep track of them all the time. They have their own life-style preferences, and we only apply the discipline for key things, like diet and education."

We might have been inside a large office building back on Earth, except for the low gravity and the inevitable slight curve of all the floors and ceilings. The latter were white, about eight feet high, and the walls were pleasant shades of buff, green and ivory. There was none of the sterile or metallic impression that some Earth people had spoken of as the main ingredient of L-5 decor. Naturally, there was no wood, but the color and shaping of the metals and plastics had been done skillfully, to give a feeling of grain and variable texture. I liked it, and Tom was obviously pleased by my reaction.

Theo Hendon, head of Education, was reviewing course material when we reached his quarters. One look at him told me how lucky Tom had been. Naturally lean and angular, Tom had become even thinner from loss of muscle in the L-5 environment. That had countered the natural tendency to fill out with increasing years, and made him look youthful and attractive by Earth standards. Theo Hendon was much more an endomorph. He had swelled in bulk while losing both muscle and bone structure, and looked like a big, fat blob. There, I felt, was one man who skimped badly on his exercise sessions. I resolutely tried to leave Earth ideals of beauty behind me as we entered.

"Fourth grade history and geography," Hendon said after the introductions were over. "Lena Bartels teaches it, and you'll meet her tomorrow. But maybe you'd like to have a look at the course material now, unless you are feeling too tired."

His manner was friendly, but he couldn't disguise his worry and nervousness. I already knew that he was one of the people that I'd have to be extra nice to, since it was his area of responsibility that had first triggered Tom's worries and brought me up to L-5. I think I managed to put him fully at ease in about five minutes (a behavioral scientist who can't make people accept her is, like an insolvent economist, inexcusable).

"I'd like to see the courses," I said to Hendon. "But more than that, I'd like to see a few of the children. Where are their living quarters and play areas? I'd like to see those, before I see the children in school tomorrow. That may be more important than looking at the written material—I already saw a fair amount before I came here."

The two men looked at each other.

"I'll take her," said Tom after a moment. He turned to me. "We set up the living quarters for the space-borns on the outer rim, along with the rest of us. But they have access to all of the Colony, except for the power and utility sections, and they seem to prefer their own choice for recreation, in towards the Hub. They've taken over an empty storage section there and converted it to a sort of maze. I won't try and describe it—you'll have to see it for yourself. But it means another walk—uphill this time—before the sleep period."

While he was speaking, he looked at me with a certain, familiar expression. I felt warm inside. We had been increasingly at ease with each other since we left Stanford, and now the last reserve was gone. I smiled back at him.

"I'm not fatigued, Tom," I said. "But I am sleepy—I spent most of the night before we left re-arranging my teaching schedule. Let's wait until tomorrow."

"Sure. I forgot that you have those mighty Earth-trained muscles. You could carry me up to the Hub, I'll bet, and not notice the effort. But let it wait a few hours, and you'll feel more alert when you do take a look round."

Theo Hendon nodded his agreement. He had—not surprisingly—missed all the second level of communication between us, and he didn't seem to notice that I had suddenly and inexplicably changed my priorities completely.

Irresponsible on my part, to put pleasure before professional work? Sure—but as I get older carpe diem gets more and more reasonable as a motto for life. Tom wanted to show me that his physical collapse in the soupy air and full Earth gravity of Portola Valley was irrelevant in the airy palaces of Laputa. I wanted to help him do it.

* * *

The classroom looked conventional enough, even though the furniture was thin and insubstantial by Earth standards. We had gone to a good deal of trouble to find me a hiding place behind a wall projector panel where I could see and hear without being seen. I didn't want to induce atypical behavior in either teacher or students. It had taken me a while to persuade Theo Hendon that I was really not spying on Lena Bartels, but he had finally agreed that there was no way of guaranteeing normal behavior on her part if she suspected that she had a hidden witness.

I was in position early, well before the lesson began. Soon after I had settled myself, the first child floated in through the classroom doorway and made her way to the front row of the fixed benches. She was about nine years old, dressed in a brief, daffodil-yellow costume like a loose, one-piece bathing suit.

The frequent televison and film coverage from L-5 couldn't do justice to the reality. The long, skeletal limbs were the same. So was the delicate looking, eggshell-thin skull, with its thin-boned features and sparse covering of fine hair. The factor that the cameras failed to catch at all was the unworldly grace of movement. When the space-born moved, I realized how clumsy Tom and his colleagues were in low gravity. As the child moved, all of her moved. There was a curious symmetry to the motion, an overall balance that was pleasing to the eye while apparently functionally unnecessary (except that my experience has taught me that there is no such thing as 'unnecessary' behavior). I had no idea of the child's name, but in my mind she was Cobweb, Moth, Mustard-seed.

I found out the basis for that graceful symmetry later, but while I was still puzzling and admiring the rest of the children began to arrive. Lena Bartels came in last. By contrast, her movements, though they were economical and practised in low gravity, appeared crude and awkward. She came to the front of the room, checked the class roster just as though it were any schoolroom back on Earth, and began the lesson.

No one ever approaches a problem with a completely open mind. I had read the reports that the children had written, and deep inside me I had blamed the teachers. Only biased and malicious indoctrination, I felt, could lead to such alienation, such misery, in the children's work. I hadn't sensed that bias in Tom, or in Theo Hendon, so subconsciously I expected it to show up in the teachers who had most of the actual classroom contact.

It wasn't there. Lena Bartels was kind, competent and sympathetic.

Some of the children seemed restless, wriggling in their seats while she presented the lesson to them, but I could find no fault with the material, either in the facts or in the manner of its presentation. The facts of history were given clearly, without distortion or personal views of rights and wrongs. Lena Bartels knew how to pace her class so that the children were neither bored nor bewildered.

I sat through five classes, one after the other, given by five different teachers. By the end of the fifth I was baffled. All the teachers were excellent. Had I thought about it before I left Earth, I would have concluded that it was inevitable. The screening processes for the L-5 Colony were so stringent, so exhaustive, that no psychopath, child-hater or simple incompetent would ever get near the place.

I went back to my room and re-read some of the children's class reports. After looking carefully at a time sequence of them, I could dispose of Tom's original question about 'critical mass' in the children's group behavior. The disquieting undercurrent of misery had been there for a long time. It was Tom and Theo Hendon's awareness that had triggered suddenly, and after that—naturally—they saw the problem everywhere. I checked a few dates in the history of the Colony, then queried a couple of others through the terminal in my room. After that I went to look for Tom.

He wasn't in his office. I tracked him down finally in the high-gee track, a four meter band that ran on air bearings right around the cylinder and rotated faster than the rest. Effective gravity on the track was a little more than half a gee. Tom, along with a hundred other men and women scattered along the nineteen hundred meters of rubberized surface, was pounding out his daily quota of one complete circuit.

He waved to me as he came off the track, jumped to the catch net, and dropped back to the main floor of the exercise section. He looked exhausted.

"Any progress yet?" His voice was weary, but I could hear the hope in it.

I had ideas, but they were still half-formed and in a pre-verbal state. I would have offered a flat 'No' to most people, to avoid discussion before I was ready, but Tom and I had been too close for that. In all our time together, we had only one major disagreement—one that had eventually driven us apart. I felt that my duty lay on Earth, trying to understand and improve the interaction of the teeming billions of a tired planet. As our resources dwindled, that loomed bigger every day as a practical problem. Behaviorists were more important each year, providing the lubricating mechanisms that kept Earth functioning.

Tom had disagreed with me, flatly and completely. As soon as the chance arose, he had applied for a position with the Colony development team.

"This world has had it, Beth," he would say, as we walked around the campus. "You can't see it yet, but it's beginning to run down. This was our cradle, but you can't spend your life in a crib. We have to get off-Earth, up where we have lebensraum, up where power and materials are unlimited. I want to be part of the future, not the custodian of an over-packed museum."

We had finally parted, but the sense of instinctive understanding between us was flooding back. Tom would see through a lie of mine as easily as I would read one of his.

"I have some ideas," I replied, as he towelled his face and arms in the changing-rooms of the exercise section. "But I really don't want to talk about them yet. I need more evidence that I'm heading in the right direction."

He nodded.

"Still a witch, are you?" he said.

I smiled. I used to plead supernatural powers back in our college days, when I couldn't be bothered to fill in all the steps of some long, tortuous train of reasoning that had preceded an 'intuitive' conclusion about a tough problem or a delicate decision. Most people seemed to be quite happy with a magic answer. Tom was one of the few people who knew how my head really worked, but he had always kept my secret. I was Beth, the Witch of Berkeley.

"If you're not worn out," I replied, "I'd like you to take me up to the section near the Hub where the children have their recreation area."

"Give me another five minutes. The high-gee track is rough going."

I looked at his body, pale and skinny, and I thought of the other reason why I didn't care to talk yet. True, I needed more evidence—but equally true, if I were right there was grief ahead for many of us.

This time we went up to the Hub in an elevator, a continuous belt that we grabbed as it came by and rode up the shaft holding on to it. We used an exit point about thirty meters short of the Hub itself. I thought the gravity there was zero, but Tom assured me that we were still experiencing a fiftieth of a gee—I weighed about a kilo, Tom a little less. We pulled ourselves along, hand over hand, to a transparent plastic flap in the section wall, about two meters square. Tom pulled it aside and we floated ourselves through, Tom easily, I with a good deal more effort and less grace.

We had entered a large, open, octahedral section, about thirty meters in diameter. The walls were unfinished grey metal, smooth and unmarked except for a large number of yellow metal bosses. Tied to these, and criss-crossing the interior space in a complex, bewildering web, were numerous plastic cables, color coded and intricately tied at their many crossing points. The ties themselves were focal points for the attachment of hammocks, cabinets, tent-like enclosures and cloth screens. In the room were about fifty children, singly and in small groups, ranging in age from about four to eleven.

I paused and looked about me.

"They did all this themselves?" I asked.

Tom nodded without speaking. The children looked at us warily as we drifted through the section, moving and guiding ourselves with the aid of the web of taut cables.

We stopped near a child of about six years, painting on a blue, rough-textured plastic sheet. His 'brushes' were small aerosol cylinders, each giving a controllable color spray that ranged in thickness from a fine line to a broad, diffuse swath. His movements as he painted were like an elaborate ballet. As his hand went forward to his canvas, the other thin arm and the long, slender legs moved also. When he looked around at us, I noticed that his arms and legs made small, precise movements at the same time as his head. The effect was very beautiful, and totally alien. I saw that he was painting a flowing pattern of lines, converging on a blue center. The common structure of Earth paintings, into horizontal and vertical elements, was lacking completely.

"Tom, why do the children move that way?" I asked softly, as we left the child and moved on through the maze of cables. "They seem to move every part of them, all at once."

"They do." Tom looked back at the child. His expression was a strange mixture of affection, worry and sadness. "They learn it when they are very young. They move to keep their heads facing the way they want to, by balancing the linear and angular momentum of each part of the body. I've tried to do the same thing, but never been able to master it. Of course, it's really useful up here, in zero gee. On the outer sections, it doesn't matter so much. They spend so much time up here, they all learn to do it by the time they are four years old."

"But what about the calcium loss, Tom? If they spend all their time in low gee, isn't it uncomfortable for them on the outer rim—their bones won't take it, will they?"

The worry was evident on Tom's face. "That's one of the big problems, Beth. They don't like the outer sections, and they hate to exercise. Every chance they get, they are up here. The first of them are supposed to go down to Earth to complete their education in just two more years. They don't have the bone and muscle to take it. Even if they exercise hard now, it will be very hard on them physically. We've tried every argument. They don't argue back, but they don't change their ways. I've tried every persuasion—their parents, their teachers. Nothing seems to make any difference."

We moved on past a group of four children, completely absorbed in wrapping a sheet around a group of light struts, to form a neat, silver enclosure.

"See there," said Tom. "That's the same thing, on a higher level. Only the older children can do it. They are moving to keep their total momentum right, their bodies and the cube they're making. Don't ask me how they do it."

I had seen enough for my theories, but I stayed to watch for esthetic pleasure. It was like the finest choreography, danced with unearthly skill by a group of fairy-folk, delicate-bodied and frail. I knew now what I had to do. But I still had to decide on the right way of doing it.

* * *

I never did find that right way. Events overtook me. Tom and I had just been to the outer levels, the 'basement' of the Colony, and Tom had taken me on a long guided tour of the agricultural sections. All the food that we ate was produced on the Colony, with almost perfect recycling. The small losses were made up by occasional shipments of raw materials from the lunar surface. Tom estimated the total materials loss from the Colony at less than one percent of recycled substance per century, which made it effectively self-sufficient for the foreseeable future, even if Earth cut off support for a second and larger Colony. According to Tom, it was the psychological effect of that second Colony which was so important—the Colonists had to feel that they were in space to stay, that it was their natural and real home.

As we returned to the main living quarters, Tom stopped by the message center. He came out looking enormously pleased and excited.

"Beth!" he said. "Why didn't you tell me?" He waved a message slip at me. "This is from Stanford—approving an early start to your sabbatical, so you can work in the L-5 Colony. It says that if you decide to stay here, as you hinted, you would be asked to serve as an extramural professor for as long as you choose."

I winced at the pleasure in his voice. This would make it harder yet.

"Tom, I don't know if I want to be a colonist here. I do want to spend a year here, at least, trying to help out, and I think it will take at least that long. That's why I sent my message. I didn't expect such a fast reply, or I'd have talked with you before."

"You think you've got the solution to our problem here?"

"Not a solution. All I've got is an explanation."

He looked relieved. "Hell, don't worry about that, Beth. We've solved every other problem that Nature's been able to throw at us up here. If you can tell us the cause of it, well find a fix."

"I hope you're right. I wish I was that confident." I thought for a few seconds, then mentally shrugged. I had to get it over with, the sooner the better.

"Tom, I could say this a hundred ways, but none of them are graceful. I'll say it flat out: we don't belong here."

He frowned, then laughed uneasily. "Beth, you'll have to say more than that. I don't know what you're trying to tell me."

I leaned forward and took his hands, thin and bony, in mine. "Look, you know my thought processes as well as anybody in the world—or out of it. I'll tell you exactly how I got to where I am, and you can tell me if you spot any error in the logic."

"All right." He nodded. His face was troubled. "What's the bad news?"

"All that I knew when I came up here," I said, "was that the children in the Colony were feeling terribly lost and unhappy. That was obvious from the things they were writing in school. Then, even before we got here, I noticed an odd thing. You never called them the children—it was always the 'space-borns.' And when I got here I found that the other adult colonists used the same expression."

"Well, Beth, they are space-born—all of them."

"Of course they are, but more than that they are your children. It's not as if some of the children had been born on Earth, and you needed to separate the two types for some reason. They were all born here. Oh, I know there's plenty of love and affection, it's not that. I've seen the teachers working with the children, and I've been impressed by them. But I still found it odd that you would refer to them by a different name. I wondered at first if it were their odd appearance—that was the only explanation that I could think of."

I thought back to that appearance, and to the aerial ballet of the children's activities, the movement of those delicate, graceful bodies with their smooth skin and scanty hair.

"When I got here, I went to hear the classes that were being taught. They were excellent. I can't recall hearing anything better on Earth. Well presented, by teachers who loved the children and their work. I seemed to be stuck. I went back to my room, locked myself in, and re-read the school reports and the medical records.

"Tom, you know the methods I use in my work. I tried to imagine myself inside the head of one of the space-borns, seeing the world through the child's eyes. It wasn't easy, because the cultural referents are so different—but when I got it, it was a revelation. Remember, not one of the children here has ever been to Earth—not even to the Moon. This, the Colony, is the world. The only real world, the only one that matters."

"We tell them all about Earth, and the Moon too, Beth. They will all visit them, in due course."

"I know you tell them of Earth and Moon—too much. Tom, all your teaching is done by adults, born and raised on Earth, and it has a single viewpoint—a geocentric one. We can't see the world any other way. But try and see it now as an outsider would. You try to get the children to live in the high-gravity parts of the Colony, the ones most like Earth—when all the time they would rather live in zero gee, up near the Hub. You plan elaborate exercise programs for them, designed to prevent calcium loss and to keep their muscles strong. They hate it, they don't need those muscles or that strong bone structure. They don't see any point in running on the treadmill—that's the way they see you, in the Red Queen's Race and getting nowhere. You even promote standards of beauty based on Earth physique—which must make them all feel like freaks.

"Do you wonder that they feel alienated from the adults?"

I paused for breath. Tom was looking unconvinced, and a little stubborn.

"Beth, of course we try and get them to exercise in the higher gravity parts of the Colony. Surely you understand why. We don't want them to feel they're on a treadmill, but if they don't build their bodies they'll never be able to go to Earth at all—it will be closed to them."

"Sure it will." I held to my purpose and pressed on. "Just the way that a trip to Jupiter is closed to you and me. Do we worry about that? Of course not. It isn't home.

"Tom, this is big news. The Colony here is a total success. It can run itself indefinitely. There's only one thing out of place in the Colony. Us. We don't belong here. We're clumsy in the low gravity, we need special measures to keep fit, and we never can learn some of the zero-gee skills of the space children. As for them, they're miserable and self-destructive for one good reason—people they love are telling them they should be something they are not, something they don't want to be. That gets drummed into them, day after day. Do you wonder that they seek happiness away with their own kind, or that they are thoroughly miserable and confused with us?"

Tom was looking crushed and miserable, his eyes full of self-doubt, but I had to finish.

"The children could run this Colony, Tom, today—with a minimum of advice and assistance from us. This is their home. Earth is an alien place, a remote, unreal ornament in the sky. As for us, we've served our purpose. We were just the transition team, essential to getting the place started. Now, we do more harm than good."

I was done. I watched in silence as Tom grappled with what I had said, watched as the despair mounted in his face.

"Beth, if that's it, why can't we see it?" His voice was anguished.

"You are too close to it—you devoted your life to this Colony, all of you. It needed somebody from the outside to take a close look."

"But Beth, you're saying we'd harm the space-borns—the children," he corrected himself quickly. "We'd never do that."

"You wouldn't harm them, knowingly. You've harmed them, just the same. Don't you see, somehow to you they aren't real children. You watch them, all of you, waiting for the magic day when they will change to human children and be like you. That won't happen, ever. They are right for space. Compared to them, we are clumsy, poorly-coordinated. We aren't right for life up here."

Tom had never been self-deluding, and he had never been a coward. He was fighting to find a flaw in what I said, but on his face was dawning a pained and yearning look, the mask of Moses, learning that he might see but could never live in the Promised Land. I wondered if I could ever soothe away part of that loss.

"Beth." He roused himself, and looked at me, trying one last hope. "If what you say is true, if the children don't need us or want us here—then why do you plan to come and live here, yourself? What use will you be as a behavioral specialist, if you don't even try and influence the children's attitudes? You'll have no work to do here."

I leaned forward and took Tom in my arms, cradling his head on my breast.

"I'll have work, Tom, more work than I've ever had in my whole life. People here will need help to adjust, tremendous help. But not the children. Everyone but the children."

Afterword.

To me, the most interesting parts of the Skylab experiments were the biomedical results. The astronauts adjusted to free fall after a few days, so they didn't feel nauseated all the time. But soon after they went up their bodies began to excrete calcium, and that loss continued the whole time they were up there. Most significantly, the rate of loss was constant, as high at the end of the flight as near the beginning.

The possible implications of that are obvious. Lose calcium for a long enough period, and you won't have a bone structure left that can stand Earth's gravity. That leaves you with two possible conclusions: mankind can't take a low-gee environment—men and women would die if they were up there long enough. Or mankind would adapt to space, becoming a life-form that was not suited to existence on the surface of a planet. Take your pick—the evidence is not in yet.

Last year, the Russians had astronauts up in orbit for a much longer period—a hundred and fifty-nine days. They survived all right, and the use of special pressure suits helped solve some earlier problems with blood pressure and blood circulation. But I haven't seen any reports yet on their calcium loss. The only reports so far released to the West have not said anything about it. Maybe in the next six months we'll have news from Russia that tells if this story is a prediction or an obsolete worry.

BOUNDED IN A NUTSHELL

The books were piled high on the desk and overflowed into a heap on the floor. Merle Walters paused, dropped his shapeless hat onto a chair and picked up one of the books. It was heavy and blue-jacketed, and entitled Advances In Parapsychology. He looked in surprise at the secretary, half-hidden behind the piles of volumes.

"What's going on here, Franny? Has Tolly started seances in there?"

"Good morning, Mr. Walters. Go right on in, Mr. Suomi's expecting you."

Walters shrugged and limped through into the inner office. Tolly Suomi, neatly groomed as always, looked up at his entrance and pushed a pile of yellow file cards away from him on the desk. He shook his head, a fraction of an inch left and right, and sat tapping one remaining card held between thumb and forefinger.

"That was quick action, Merle. I thought it might take you a while to break loose after Franny called you."

Merle Walters sat down, favoring his left leg. "Loose, from nothing. There's a special Hell for people put out to pasture, and I'm in it."

Suomi looked at him keenly, assessing the eyes, complexion, and posture. "Maybe, Merle, but it seems to agree with you. You look a good deal healthier than you did six months ago. Healthy enough for you to get a bit more trouble from me." He leaned back in his chair. "You know, there's another special Hell for company presidents who don't believe the reports they get from their purchasing departments. Merle, what are your views on telepathy?"

Walters looked perplexed. He leaned back also, the fingers of his right hand automatically reaching over in a habitual gesture to massage the shoulder of his empty left sleeve. After a few moments he shook his head.

"Telepathy? It's bunk, Tolly. Now, if you'd asked me that forty years ago, I'd have said it was the most exciting thing in the world. Back when Rhine started his work, I thought there was really something there. Since then, it's gone nowhere. Christ, there's been any amount of talk, lots of horseshit, no real evidence, and nothing for progress. So now, I say it's bunk—or else we've been going about it all wrong. What's it got to do with WAWD Corporation?"

Suomi sighed. "An unfavorable review. That's just about what I thought you'd say. I would have expressed it differently, but after looking at that lot—" He jerked his thumb at the stack of books on the credenza behind him "—I tend to the same view. I was hoping you might feel otherwise, and persuade me. You see, we've got a problem." He pushed the pile of purchasing file cards toward Walters. "What do you do if your head of purchasing comes in and says that the competition is using telepathy on Government surplus buys?"

"Depends who it is. Either you send him to have his head examined, or you send somebody out to the sales with him to get a second opinion."

"Right. You send somebody really solid with him, like Jack Tukey, right? Somebody who has his head screwed on the right way around. I agree, that's exactly what you do. So now take a look at these. Jack's comments are on top, the others are underneath."

Merle Walters rubbed his finger across the bridge of his broad, blunt nose, and scowled. "You're a bastard, Tolly. I should know you better by now. I let you set me up for that. What's the story, then, as you see it?" He leaned forward and pulled the cards toward him. "Is it worth getting my glasses out to read these damned things, or can you summarize for me?

"Take them away with you and read them over later. They flesh out the details, but I can give you a summary easily enough." Suomi reached across his desk and pushed the intercom button. "Franny, bring me the file on Kirkwood Research, will you?" He looked at Walters. "No, you never heard of them. They are only an eight-man outfit, based in Arlington. Four years old, privately owned. I've had trouble getting information on them, but I can show you a copy of their 129 for DOD procurements. Maybe I should back up a bit. Did you know the Government has been holding a bunch of simultaneous auctions on the sale of war surplus equipment?"

Walters nodded. "I heard about that through the CBD. Four auctions in four different places. I suppose the idea is to stop price fixing and get better prices. It sounded half-assed to me when I first heard about it."

"Maybe. Anyway, it's not working very well—but not for the reasons you might think. We've been to six of those sales in the past two months, and we've bought a fair amount of surplus electronics equipment. Prices were good—but Jim Spurling noticed that the reps from Kirkwood Research were using a curious bid pattern."

"How do you mean, curious?"

"Well, sometimes they would bid hard, and sometimes they'd start strong and then stop suddenly. When Jim got back here he looked up the complete list of final sales prices, from all four auction centers. He found Kirkwood had a rep at each one, and had bought at all of them."

"Nothing strange in that, Tolly. Didn't you do the same? You get your bargains that way, if you happen to be the only ones interested in making a bid on something."

"Sure we did. That's not the odd part. When Jim analyzed Kirkwood's bidding, he noticed something he couldn't explain. Kirkwood seemed to know exactly what was happening, all the time at all the auctions."

"That's hard for me to swallow, Tolly. Why did Jim happen to pick out Kirkwood—why didn't he have his eye on Lectron, or Ajax, or one of the other big specialists in surplus equipment?"

"According to Jim they drew attention to themselves. He sat next to one of the Kirkwood men at the first sale, and at first he thought the man was stoned or sick. He sat there, spaced out, and he only seemed in touch with things about half the time. But he bid exactly right, and he stopped bidding—this is the heart of it—when Kirkwood had bought similar equipment, at very good prices, at one of the other auctions."

"Was Jim able to compare the times at each sale?"

"He tried to, afterwards, and he decided that it had to match within a few minutes, at the most. You see the pattern? A buy in one place, a stopped bid everywhere else—consistently."

"How about two-way radios? That would do it."

"That was Jack Tukey's first thought, when he took a look at what Jim had found. Two-way radios are banned at the auctions, but it seemed like a good guess. Next time, he went to one auction and Jim went to another. They both watched the Kirkwood men, and they swear there was no sign of a radio—not even of something small, like a throat mike. How does it sound, Merle?"

Walters was hunched in his seat, bald brow furrowed and eyes far away. "Interesting. And fishy. But not tied down. How close were those times you talked about?"

"Jim Spurling and Jack synchronized watches before the sales and compared notes afterwards. Kirkwood stopped bidding at each auction exactly when they had bought what they wanted at one of the others—only then.

"There's one other thing, Merle. Jim claims that it's not just telepathy—there are other mysteries, too."

Walters grimaced. "One thing at a time, Tolly. Did Jim or Jack get a good look at several different Kirkwood reps?"

"Yes. They all have the same, spaced-out expression, and they all seem to cut in and out—like turning themselves on and off."

"That doesn't mean supernatural powers, Tolly."

"No, but how about this, then. Some of the auctioned equipment was made up into mixed lots. The Government does it to get rid of some of the junky stuff."

"I've been through that. To get one or two things that you really want, you have to buy a great random mass of stuff, sometimes."

"So everybody sat there with their pocket calculators, trying to estimate the value of the mixture of items on the block, and it can get very hairy, because you need to know the quantity and value of each item, and some of the lots aren't advertised in advance. The Kirkwood reps didn't have any calculators."

"But they bought anyway?"

"Right. They just sat there, bidding as though they were half-asleep—or not bidding, when it suited them. Jim went over the lists afterwards, and calculated how well Kirkwood had done. In every case, even on the most complex mixed lots, they bid only on the right side of the value. You see what that means?"

"Supermen. Lightning calculators, as well as telepaths. I don't like that one either, Tolly." Walters drummed his fingers on the desk top and stared at the Flower of Repose hanging behind Suomi. "Mind you, I've not heard anything yet that suggests this whole thing is hurting WAWD's business."

"True enough. We're still doing all right. But I'm getting awfully curious, and you suggested you've been going to seed, away from the office. Jack's up to his neck in other things, and I feel there must be—at the least—a valuable business angle."

"And at a maximum, Tolly, we've been replaced by the successor to Homo sapiens."

"Now you're getting a bit too fancy for my taste. But I wondered if you, as President Emeritus and Special Consultant to WAWD, would like to have a look and tell us what's going on."

"You couldn't stop me, Tolly. Is there a bit of hurt ego in it for you, too? I know you can't stand to have anybody get ahead of you on a business deal."

"Maybe there is, Merle. Getting one-upped by you last year was bad enough. One more thing for you, before you run out of here."

"Final customers? I've been wondering what an eight-man company would be doing with a mass of equipment."

"That's right, Merle. We've been talking all the time about the Kirkwood people, but Kirkwood Research has an agreement with Lectron. Kirkwood handles all the surplus auction work, and sells it to Lectron for a fixed percentage commission. Lectron must be delighted with the results—they've saved millions in the past few months."

Merle Walters levered himself to his feet and picked up the pile of purchasing record cards. "Let me take these away and sleep on the whole thing. I'll drop in on Jack Tukey on the way out and get his comments. See you tomorrow, Tolly. You're a damned nuisance, you know. My evening's going to be ruined."

He limped out. Suomi smiled slightly—a fraction of an inch elevation of the corners of his mouth. Was it imagination, or was there a little more spring in the old man's step than when he arrived?

* * *

"I want to see it for myself, Tolly. And I want to have a bit of equipment made up for me by the machine shop."

"Fine. Keep it as cheap as you can, Merle. Though I know you'll do that by natural instinct. What is it you need?"

"A tunable receiver. I still have great faith in the electromagnetic spectrum, and I haven't given up on the idea of two-way radios. I want a detector that will let me run over a big range of frequencies, from about five hundred kilohertz right up to a couple of hundred gigahertz. I want to be able to test for signals in the range from AM up to UHF, so I cover all the usual radio and TV frequencies. I want it strongly directional, so I can point it at the Kirkwood men. I want it small enough to fit in my briefcase; and I want it with controls that I can operate from outside the briefcase, including the displays of the received signals."

"Made of solid gold, I suppose. Anything else?"

"Yes, one other thing. I want a tape recorder attached to it, so I can record any signals that I come across. And I need it in time for the next auction, on the seventeenth."

"That's a couple of thousand dollars, throwing in labor and overhead."

"I estimated seventeen hundred. Put it on your R&D budget, or knock it off my consulting fees. Now, one final thing, I read the poop that Franny gave me about Kirkwood, but it's not very good. Can you get Vince to put feelers out through the sales staff, and see who knows Kirkwood himself? Where he came from, what he's like. I might need to meet him before we go much further."

"Consider it done. You know Vince, he could get the details on the Pope's love life if he spent an hour or two on the telephone. Who do you want with you at the auction, when the equipment is ready for you?"

"Nobody. Jim Spurling should plan to go to one of the other auction rooms, so we can compare notes afterwards. A week from now, we might know a bit more about this thing."

* * *

The nearest auction room to the WAWD offices was a big, echoing old warehouse off Maine Avenue. The bidders present were the usual mix of amateurs, looking for some particular amplifier, light table, or sensor for their own use, and professional buyers, who bought widely and never under any circumstances bid against the amateurs. Merle looked over the group with a practiced eye, separating the sheep from the goats. He moved forward at last and stood about six feet behind the Kirkwood rep. A row of heavy steel pillars running the length of the warehouse and set every twenty feet divided the fifty bidders into four smaller groups. Merle held his briefcase in front of him, switched on and began the frequency sweep as the first lot came up for bid. Twin meters set into the top of the briefcase showed signal strength, direction, and frequency.

The Kirkwood man was standing there in silence, watching the lots as they were produced. Merle began to sweep up the spectrum, beginning at AM frequencies and moving slowly to shorter wavelengths. Each time the receiver showed a significant signal, he turned the briefcase through about thirty degrees. The receiver was strongly directional and it was easy to determine if the man from Kirkwood was the source. It took time. Merle moved steadily through the spectrum, discarding numerous peaks in the power dial indicator when their directionality proved incorrect.

At last, in the CB band, he found a strong peak in the received signal that fell away sharply in strength as he turned the case away from the man standing in front of him. He moved quietly to his left, turned the case, and looked again. The signal direction had turned with him. The Kirkwood rep was the source of a strong signal. Merle noted the frequency, and went on, painstakingly exploring the higher frequencies for more signals. There were no others with the correct dependence on direction. Merle returned to the frequency he had noted, and switched on the tape recorder.

He watched closely. There was no sign of a throat mike, and both of the man's hands were in full view. Apart from occasional bids, always delivered clearly and precisely, the man was motionless. It was easy to see what Jim Spurling had been getting at. There was a distant, unfocused look on the man's face, and his body seemed to stand there wooden and unmoving.

The signals came in bursts. There was about one second of power in every fifteen, then the signal dropped away to zero—or to a level too low to measure. Merle switched detector sensitivity several times, but he still could pick up nothing during the silent periods, even at the most sensitive setting of the receiver. The power peaks came regularly, whether the Kirkwood rep was bidding or not.

The tape capacity permitted only thirty minutes of continuous recording. When the warning light for tape-end blinked on, Merle switched off and remained watching. The Kirkwood man bought five lots—and broke off bids on three others, almost in mid-word. Unlike the other bidders, hard at work with their calculators, he did not move when a new mixed lot was produced. Finally, although the auction was only two-thirds over, he turned suddenly and walked out of the building. Merle waited for a few seconds, then followed him into the muggy and sweltering August overcast.

The man walked fifty yards along Maine Avenue, climbed into a blue VW with a tall CB aerial, and drove away. Merle, very thoughtful, didn't bother with a cab. Instead, he limped a few blocks to Hogates, for a seafood lunch and a spell of concentrated head work. What he had seen suggested several possibilities, all of them uncomfortably wild.

* * *

"Well, there's your analysis, Merle. I hope it tells you more than it tells me."

Tolly Suomi pushed the listings across the desk and looked inquiringly at Walters. A tiny crease in the middle of his smooth, unlined forehead testified to his perplexity. "I don't know if you were expecting English language signals to come off that tape, but the lab hasn't been able to get anything like that."

"I didn't expect any language we'd be able to transcribe." Merle Walters looked at the analysis of the tape recorded signals with every sign of satisfaction. "In fact, after I'd had a couple of martinis at Hogates yesterday, I decided what ought to be on that tape. I'll make a bet that I was right. It's Pulse Code Modulated signals, and it's all digital, right?"

"That's how it looks to everybody here. It's PCM, Merle, and it proves one thing conclusively: the Kirkwood people have been sending messages from the auctions, just the way that Jim deduced from the bidding patterns."

"Sending, and receiving too, Tolly. I didn't get anything on incoming signals, because we were fine-tuned on direction and I was concentrating on the Kirkwood rep. But I'll bet you we'd have picked up incoming signals on the same frequency if I'd done a thorough 360-degree sweep at the auction. There was a two-way transfer of information going on there, or I'm a Dutchman."

"So it is a system for beating the simultaneous auction system, Merle. And it's a two-way radio system, the way that Jack Tukey suspected. The problem is, how are they doing it?"

"It's more than that, Tolly, a hell of a lot more. I think we're in at the beginning of something tremendous. Not only that, I think we are the only people who really know what's happening. Did Vince have any luck, getting more background on Kirkwood Research?"

"A fair amount, but not as much as we'd like. Kirkwood—Charles Kirkwood—started it, and owns it. Until last year, they made electronics specialty equipment on a single-shot, sole-source basis for places like the Naval Research Lab and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Recently, they've cut down on that and offered commission services like the one they give to Lectron."

"Good reputation?"

"First-rate, technically. Kirkwood's a bright boy, all right. Biochemistry degree from Stanford, PhD in Information Theory from Princeton, then three years at IBM's Watson Research Center in Yorktown. Fired from there four years ago, then he moved here to set up his own shop in Washington."

"Fired? By IBM? That's unusual if you're really bright, Tolly. What was he doing, screwing his secretary on company time?"

"Worse than that. Moonlighting—for the competition. More facts: Kirkwood Research rents about five thousand square feet over in Arlington, and apparently they have a pretty well-equipped lab."

"How's their financial situation?"

"Solid. According to one of Vince's friends in DCAA, they've had clean audits and they now do about half a million a year. Growth rate has been good, but not spectacular. There seems to be no interest in selling out, or in going public. No problems in cash flow, and their credit around town is excellent."

"Pity. Kirkwood Research isn't for sale, but if I'm right, Tolly, we have to try and buy it—even if it means offering ten times what their books would seem to justify.

"Do you think Vince can get me a meeting with Charles Kirkwood himself? It doesn't matter what the official reason is, but it would be much better if it can be arranged through a mutual acquaintance."

"I'm sure he can. Where?"

"At the Kirkwood plant, for preference. But I don't want to do it until I've done a couple of other things in preparation. I need to have another piece of equipment made here, and I need a special simulation done, out in Redondo Beach. I'd like to steal a week of Alex Burns's time, to work on it. It's something different from anything he's tried before, but he should enjoy it."

Suomi sighed. "Merle, if you weren't naturally stingy—and a major stockholder in WAWD—I'd think you were trying to blow the year's profits. Do you need both things done?"

"I'm not sure. I hope I'll only need the simulation, but I want the other equipment to be on the safe side."

"Then what will it cost, Merle? And how much are you saying you want us to offer to buy Kirkwood Research, if it's available? I have to answer to the Board, you know."

"I know. And I know that we control them between us." Merle Walters leaned forward, his gray eyes alive beneath his bushy brows. "I'll tell you what I think is going on, Tolly. But then if you don't agree with me, and won't back this, I'll go ahead with my own money."

Tolly Suomi looked at him quizzically across the desk. "That important, is it? Merle, I have to go over to Riggs in two hours and talk lines of credit. If you can't persuade me in half that, you've lost your touch."

Franny, coming into the office five minutes after, found the two men deep in conversation and tiptoed out again without speaking. Six months before, Merle Walters had retired, an old and tired man under a death sentence from the doctors. There was certainly no sign of it today, judging from the alert voice and incisive gestures.

* * *

The offices and plant of Kirkwood Research occupied a two-story brick building in the unfashionable part of Arlington. Double gates led through an archway in the building to an enclosed stone quadrangle and loading bay. Merle Walters limped through the gates, looking around him curiously. The original building had obviously been intended for a quite different type of business. Perhaps for a repair shop or for outside construction work. The quadrangle was completely enclosed, and once inside there was only one way out, back through the archway. The building had no doors that led onto the main street—a good, tight arrangement for industrial security, but one that probably led to considerable hassles with the Building Inspection Department. No signs of emergency exits.

Five blue VWs were parked in the inner courtyard, each carrying a CB antenna. Two men lounged against one of the automobiles, silent and absorbed. Merle noticed again the dreamy, introspective expressions that had first caught Jim Spurling's attention at the auctions. The men apparently paid no attention to Merle as he walked past them and into the building.

Charles Kirkwood had much the same look, overlaid on an intense, dark countenance. He was thin, quick in movements, and he shook Merle's hand with a nervous, energetic grip. He looked a lot younger than Merle had expected—still in his twenties. If that was true, he must have been something of a prodigy in his grade school and college years. Merle had hoped for a more mature, older man. He thought of the materials in his briefcase, and suspected that one of them had been a waste of time and money. He sat down heavily in the proffered chair, a small coffee table between him and Kirkwood, and kept his briefcase on his knee.

"Vince Menoudakis told me that WAWD would like some work done for you on one of your Navy contracts," began Kirkwood. "We've done a lot of specialist electronics work over the past four years, but we've almost given up on that recently. What's the job? If it's really advanced and challenging, we might still be interested."

"We need some microminiaturized circuitry—logic and storage. What we need has to have 16K or more bytes of storage, be fully programmable, have a fair number of hardware special functions built in, and still weigh less than half an ounce. Does it sound possible?"

Kirkwood didn't hesitate. "A snip. That's not even state-of-the-art, you can buy it off the shelf. Surely that's not the whole thing?"

"No. We also want a compact telemetry system, one that can interface with the computer, to let it receive and transmit programs and data in real time. That system should only weigh a couple of ounces too, including the power supply. Still think you can do it?"

This time there was a perceptible pause. Kirkwood went into deep concentration for a few seconds. When he emerged from it, his expression was guarded and suspicious.

"Mr. Walters, before we go any further, I'd like to know just what this Navy job of yours is. Who's your customer, and what's the task description?"

Merle lifted his hand. "Let me finish describing it to you. I admit, what we want goes well beyond the scope of our Navy contract—but I sincerely assure you that we do want to buy from you, and we'll pay a hell of a lot to get it."

Charles Kirkwood was frowning, his eyes cold and hostile. Merle felt a strengthening of his first impression. One of the things he had brought with him was going to be useless.

"This is the rest of it," he hurried on. "Here's what we want, and we are willing to pay you five million dollars—in cash—for full rights to it." Merle paused. That had slowed Kirkwood and caught his attention again. Money might be the best lever. "We want all the computer and telemetry capability, just as I described it. But it has to be in a special form. We want it in the form of an implant, that can be surgically placed inside a man's head, and then activated and interrogated directly, by impulses from the central nervous system. Just the way we control our eyes or hands. Now, we know that a primitive input/output system has already been developed, for use in prosthetics. We want something that's a couple of generations beyond that."

Merle paused, measuring his next words. "Mr. Kirkwood, I believe that you have already done all the development that I've mentioned, and carried it beyond experiment, to operational form. Now, would you care to discuss my offer?"

Expressions were chasing themselves across Kirkwood's face. Sudden and total introspection, then fury and alarm. Merle looked for greed, but it had been blotted out by other, stronger emotions. He pulled his briefcase a little closer and placed his hand on a metal boss on top of it.

"Mr. Walters." Kirkwood's voice was cold. "I don't know where you learned all this, or when. But I assure you, I must have that information, and soon."

Merle heard footsteps on the stairs behind him, and turned as three men moved into the room and blocked the doorway.

"You are an old man, Mr. Walters, and you are crippled," Kirkwood went on. "From the look of your complexion, your heart isn't in good shape. I think you should be sensible, and tell me all you know about this. I have no liking for violent methods, and I hope we won't have to use them. Just to avoid any silly ideas, I should mention that there are four other men in the courtyard. We are all in total and continuous communication with each other."

Kirkwood's face was pale, and his hands were trembling. Merle turned again to look at the other men and saw no pity or assistance there. At least it made the next step a little less distasteful. With an inward sigh, he turned the metal boss on his briefcase.

There was no sound, and no visible result of his action. Except that suddenly Kirkwood shuddered, raised his hands to his head, and sank blindly to his knees with eyes unfocused and mouth gaping. Behind him, Merle heard scraping and gasping, as the other men groped at the wall, hands held in agony against their heads.

Merle opened his briefcase, took a sealed envelope from it, and placed it on the coffee table in front of him. Unhurriedly, he stood up, picked up his briefcase and walked out of the room, past the blind, immobilized Kirkwood men and on down the stairs. In the courtyard were four others, white-faced and hesitant until Merle came closer to them. Then they too lost all control and held their heads in agony, as Merle passed them and went on across the courtyard. He limped steadily through the archway, heavy shoulders butting through the summer heat, and went on into the street.

The afternoon weather seemed ready to break, and there was a thunderstorm on the way. He flagged a cab and rode through the gathering gloom back to WAWD's offices on Wisconsin Avenue. As they drove over Key Bridge, his own mood matched the turbulence of the heavy clouds rolling above him.

He arrived just before the storm broke. There was sheet lightning to the west, over the Potomac, and fat drops of warm rain were spattering the sidewalk as he made his way into the building and took the elevator up to the WAWD office.

* * *

Dear Mr. Kirkwood,

Enclosed with this letter you will find a formal offer from WAWD Corporation to acquire the assets, in total, of Kirkwood Research Corporation. I prepared such a document in anticipation of our meeting, and developed this letter in case our discussions were terminated for some reason before I had presented all the relevant factors for your consideration.

Although the formal offer gives full details, I wish to stress two elements of our offer. First, should you accept you will be constrained from working on computerized biological implants, except for and on behalf of WAWD Corporation, for a period of seven years. Second, you will be given full and complete facilities to pursue such researches, upon acceptance, within WAWD. We neither wish to inhibit your creativity, nor to minimize the value of the development work you have done in the past four years.

I strongly urge you to accept this offer. If you do, WAWD has a powerful incentive to preserve the secrecy and value of your work. If you do not, we would have no reason to keep the existence of your work a secret. How long would it take Texas Instruments or Hewlett-Packard to catch up with and pass you, given their resources and the information that we could provide to them on the feasibility of programmable implants?

I believe you need a group like us to help you. There are elementary precautions that you should have taken and did not. For example, the cut-out circuit that you used to protect against overload from incoming signals was hopelessly inadequate. I suspect that you are reading this with a splitting headache. I have no doubt you will change the system quickly, but there are many other, less obvious, problems that you will run into as soon as big money gets involved. You have technical ingenuity, but you lack our business know-how. Both ingredients are necessary to realize the business potential of your work.

Finally, do not let prior events influence your decision too much. Business makes strange bedfellows. I am sure we will readily develop a good working relationship should you accept our offer. Since we will undoubtedly need to discuss this further, I suggest that you call me at WAWD Corporation to arrange for the next steps.

Yours sincerely,

Merle Walters

* * *

"Any reply yet from Kirkwood?"

"Not yet. Give him a few hours, Tolly. He must be feeling as though his brains have been fried. That signal generator really pushed out a lot of power, and all at the right frequency."

"You think he will take the offer, Merle?"

"When he's had time to think about it. I'm sure he'll try and find a way out for a while. He's not a very likable man—big streak of greed, and quite sneaky. You'll have your hands full if he does accept. I think my letter will make him realize he doesn't have much choice if he wants to see his money dreams come true."

Suomi grimaced a little. "A nice gesture on your part, Merle. You get the tiger to run after you, then stand carefully out of the way so I can tame him. If you had a business motto, it would be something like 'Quaerete Pessimum'—Seek the Worst. Then buy it, and work at it until it can show a profit."

"Not a bad motto, at that. All the big advances come out of some kind of trouble—war, or disease, or plain necessity."

Merle was sitting in Tolly Suomi's office, clearly enjoying himself. His gray jacket was off, and a hefty bourbon and soda was sitting in easy reach.

"Anyway Tolly, I really owe you one on this Kirkwood deal. Come on, you might as well admit it. You set me up, didn't you?"

"Set you up, Merle?" Suomi's face, as always, was impassive and unreadable.

"That's right. You didn't tell me that you had been to one of the auctions, yourself, after Jack and Jim made their reports. I dug that out of an office memo, when Franny wasn't paying much attention." Merle sipped his drink and let it sit for a second on his tongue. "Now Tolly, I know very well how your mind works. I believe that you had a suspicion that you might be seeing some kind of implanted communication equipment, before you ever called me in. You were getting worried about me, knowing I was feeling useless away from the office. Dying from the top, like a tree, as old Swift put it. So you decided, let's turn the poor old devil on to this. It can't do any harm, and it might be interesting for him." Merle sniffed. "Well, maybe you were right. I do feel a hell of a lot better than I did two weeks ago. Come on Tolly, true or false?"

Suomi gave the imperceptible Tolly smile. "An interesting, if improbable conjecture, Merle. I can swear one thing to you, in all honesty: I never realized where this might lead—and I never, for one moment, considered that you might twist my arm, and the Board's arm, into offering a ridiculously high sum of money for a small, eight-man company doing half a million a year. I still say it was far too much."

"I know you do, Tolly. But I'm right, all the same. You'll see it in the next year, when I convince you what Kirkwood Research really is. Even Charles Kirkwood himself doesn't know it, yet. You see—"

He was interrupted by the buzz of the intercom, Franny was on the line. "Mr. Walters, we just had a message from Mr. Kirkwood. He would like to meet with you here tomorrow morning to discuss your letter. I said we'd call back if you couldn't make it."

"That's fine, Franny." Walters turned again to Suomi. "So, it's getting ready to begin, Tolly. I'm telling you, we're in on the ground floor of the most important human development in the last million years."

Suomi raised his eyebrows half a millimeter. "More important than fire, Merle? More important than the printing press, or the wheel?"

"I'll stand by my statement. You see, you've never had the chance to observe the level of communication among those people at Kirkwood Research. It's breathtaking—almost terrifying. They all have programmable implants, and built-in telemetry units, and they can swap data with each other—and programs—in real-time, and they can do the same thing with their central computer and central data banks. They do it directly, or over long distances they use the relays they have in the VWs."

"But aren't they still just exchanging numbers and logic sequences, Merle? It sounds to me like hard, slow work—not my idea of rapid information swapping."

"I'm sure it was that to begin with. They had to think in sequences of numbers and instructions, slowly and carefully, just the way we use manual key strokes to operate programmable calculators. But after a while it must get to be an unconscious operation."

Suomi was thoughtful. "You mean, it goes on automatically, the way we adjust the focus of our eyes, or pick up a glass? Help yourself to a refill, by the way. We don't have to think about it, and we can do it at the same time as we do other things."

"I don't really know the details, or how it feels. I do know for a fact that Charles Kirkwood could give detailed instructions to the other men, with a small fraction of his attention, at the same time as he was talking to me. You can't imagine the degree of communication they achieve, unless you see it—and perhaps not even then."

Walters was silent for a moment, absorbed in his own thoughts. At last he spoke again. "Tolly, I told you a couple of weeks ago that telepathy was bunk."

"—and I agreed with you."

"I know you did. But we were both wrong. It didn't come the way we expected it, but we have telepathy, here and now."

"Not really, Merle. It's just computers and two-way radios, the way the Kirkwood people are operating."

"So what? The results are the same. It uses the technology we've already developed, and it uses the electromagnetic spectrum, not some new thing we've never heard of. But that's the way we do it: we build on what we have.

"Tolly, it's here. Direct mind-to-mind transfer of information. Now perhaps you understand why I'm willing to spend ten times as much as you might think, to be in on the leading edge of it."

Suomi was silent, performing his own assessment of the potential and the problems. Finally, he shook his head, a dissatisfied expression on his face. "Merle, if I read you right, you are telling me that your money-hungry friends over at Kirkwood Research are the first step to Homo gestalt."

Walters grinned. "Depressing thought, eh? But it's true enough. We shouldn't be too surprised. Look at it this way: we've wanted to travel as fast as the wind for thousands of years. Now, you drove in this morning. How long did it take you to get from Potomac to Wisconsin Avenue?"

"Three-quarters of an hour, give or take five minutes."

"So you averaged maybe ten miles an hour. Remember the old elephant joke? 'I saw an elephant on the Long Island Expressway this morning.' "

Tolly Suomi nodded. "Sure. 'What was he doing there?' "

" 'Same as everybody else, about three miles an hour.' "

"I see what you're getting at. Last week, I flew the Eastern Shuttle up to New York. Flying like a bird—in a tin box, eating plastic food."

"That's progress. We can communicate our thoughts directly to others, but we'll have to do it numerically, using electronic implants and radio communication."

Suomi shook his head thoughtfully. "You're probably right, Merle. We need a better word than telepathy—a more precise one. It's one thing to transfer data, but the real trick would be to transfer emotions directly."

"Maybe we'll do that, too, with the implants. Think about it, Tolly. It shouldn't be too hard to monitor and telemeter the basic body functions—chemical balances, temperatures, ion concentrations. It's only a short step from there to emotional states."

Suomi was staring at the wall before him, as though seeing the future spread out there. Finally, he looked over at Walters' empty glass. "Maybe we should call it a day, Merle. You've been through quite a bit, these last few hours."

"One more thing." Merle Walters rattled the ice cubes in the empty tumbler. "We've taken it a long way, but there's a big step left. I said I'd given you one reason why I wanted to buy Kirkwood. There was a second one."

He picked up his briefcase, opened it and fished out a projector cube. "Remember I had Alex Burns make me a simulation, before I went over to Kirkwood?"

"I certainly do. It cost four thousand dollars. I'd been wondering what you did with that—you haven't mentioned it since Alex delivered it."

"It's here. I thought that if Kirkwood were a real visionary—he's not—this might persuade him directly that the implants have to be handled with real care. I never had a chance to use it. You might want to play it through tonight, and you'll see what a great job Alex did—sound, vision, and special effects."

Suomi looked at the gray cube sitting in front of him. "For four thousand dollars, it had better be a masterpiece. What's it about?"

Merle Walters rubbed his bald head reflectively. "Well, it just takes the implants the logical next step. What do you think it would be like if everybody had an implant—got one when they were a child?"

"Everybody?" Suomi pursed his lips. "Well, if it goes the way you painted it, they'd have fantastic communication with each other—and with the central data banks too. It would be instant access to any information, anywhere. Things like ordinary libraries would disappear."

"Right. So if you didn't have an implant you'd be a real outsider. You'd be outside the shared data base, and outside the group-awareness. Do you see where that leads?"

"I can see some of it, Merle. It's pretty obvious that the worst punishment you could inflict would be to disable a man's implant. Like being in solitary confinement, but probably a lot worse. And there's no doubt we'd develop complete dependence on the big data banks—but we're not far from that already."

Walters leaned forward, his lined face earnest. "So now take the last step. Tolly, can you imagine how men with implants would react if they were taken to a place where they were light-years, or light-hours—or even light-minutes—away from the supporting memory banks, and the shared data? I don't think they could take it. They'd go insane."

"You are suggesting that the implants will prevent us from traveling more than a few light-seconds from Earth?"

"That's it. Unless we're careful, we'll find we've chained ourselves to a region that doesn't go much past the Moon. We're getting low on resources here. We can't afford to be shackled like that. That's what Alex Burns shows on the simulation. It's so well-done, it depressed the hell out of me, and I was expecting it. Of course, it won't come in our time, Tolly. But I don't want to see it come at all. We have to keep moving out." He crammed his hat on his bald, furrowed head. "Take a look at it, and form your own opinions.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Tolly. Seek the worst. We'll have to work out terms with Kirkwood, then we'll get ready to tame the real tiger."

He limped out. Tolly Suomi, thoughtfully stroking his neat gray beard, watched him go. That was the trouble with setting Merle up for anything. He was always more than you could ever anticipate, never less. Tolly picked up the gray projector cube, stood up from his desk and went over to the window. Dusk was gathering on the late August evening, and the earlier thunderstorm had cleared the air. The first stars were coming out, twinkling softly through the mellow haze. Somehow they looked a little dimmer and farther away than before.

Afterword.

In the Afterword to "Fixed Price War," I remarked that it was an example of an "If This Goes On. . ." story. It extrapolated a trend, but no one necessarily believes that the trend will continue that far. I think we also need to define a new class of science fiction story, which we can call the "These Things Shall Be" type—where the events have not happened yet, but we feel quite sure they will.

This story falls into the "These Things Shall Be" class. I am sure that we will, within the next twenty to thirty years, see direct connections from mind to computer—perhaps at a primitive level at first, but quickly getting more sophisticated. After this story was written but before it was published, I kept looking at the journals on interactive computer systems, half-afraid that I would see an article describing experiments just like those conducted at Kirkwood Research. I didn't, but it could happen next year or next month.

That is one problem with writing "These Things Shall Be" tales—the event may happen before the story can be sold. I had plotted out and even titled a short story called "The Descent From The Peacock Throne," which told how and why the Shah of Iran was ousted from power. I thought it would happen at the time of the succession, when the valiahd, the Crown Prince Reza, tried to assume the throne. I was five years off in my timing. Bang goes one story.

Maybe I could put it in an alternate universe and call it a fantasy ("The Man In The High Mosque?").

THE LONG CHANCE

It takes time to adjust to bad news. Unfortunately, time was the one thing we didn't have; when we finally received a clear medical diagnosis, Ana had less than five weeks to live and was going down fast. Suddenly, after seven marvelous years together, with every reason to look forward to fifty more, I saw our future collapse into a handful of days.

For more than a month I had known in my heart that there was a big problem. Ana's loss of weight and general lassitude were bad omens which, together with the translucent, waxen look of her forehead and the fine blue veins on her temples, had warned me of the worst. Tom Lambert, our doctor and a good personal friend, finally told us the grim biopsy results: no operation, no treatment worth trying and a rapidly terminal prognosis. Tom was a realist—which I am not. He prescribed massive doses of painkillers and tranquilizers for Ana, and more tranquilizers for me.

"Take as many as you need, Drake," he told me. "And don't neglect your own health. I can be here any time, night or day, if you need me."

I flushed my prescription down the drain as soon as he had left. I had already drained my cup of sorrow. There was work to do, and little time to do it; I needed all my faculties. Ana and I had always done all our thinking together, our planning together. Now I had to work it out for both of us. It took me two frantic weeks to make my plans, snatching the time when Ana was sleeping or drugged. Then I called Lambert and asked him to come over.

He arrived early that evening. It was fantastic May weather, with spring flowers leaping to blossom and bursting life everywhere except in the darkened house. After a brief examination of Ana, Tom led me into the living room and shook his head.

"It's going faster than I thought, Drake. At this rate, Anastasia will go into a final coma in a week or so. Let me have her taken to a hospital now. You don't want to see what's coming. You don't look as if you've had a wink of sleep yourself for the past month."

True, but irrelevant. I sat down opposite Tom and told him what I wanted to do, the part I wanted him to play. He heard me out, then shrugged his shoulders. I could see the pitying look in his eyes as he agreed to go along with my request.

"If you want to do it, Drake, I'll help you. After all, Ana has nothing to lose. But you know they've never done a successful thaw and revival, even on a healthy test animal. I have to tell you that in my opinion you'll be wasting your money and just making this thing harder for yourself. What does Anastasia say about the idea?"

"Not much. She's willing—maybe for my sake, She thinks that it won't work but she agrees that she has nothing to lose. Look, bring the papers with you tomorrow and we'll sign them. We have to do it quickly, while Ana can still hold a pen."

Eight days later I called Tom again. He came to the house, felt Ana's pulse and took blood pressure and brain-wave readings.

"I'm afraid this is it, Drake," he said. "I'll be very surprised to see her regain consciousness. If you're still set on this thing, now's the best time for it, while she still has some vestiges of normal body functions. A week from now it would be a waste of time."

I took a last look at Ana's calm, ravaged face. I fought a battle deep inside, forcing myself to believe that this was not my last farewell to her. Then I nodded to Tom. He injected five c.c.s of Asfanil to assure continued unconsciousness. Then, working together, we lifted her from the bed, removed her clothes and laid her gently in the thermal tank. While Tom filled out the death certificate, I called Second Chance and told them to come to the house. Tom set the tank at three degrees above freezing, inserted the needles and began the temperature drop. The blood was withdrawn through a large hollow needle in the main external iliac artery, cooled a precise amount, and returned to the femoral vein.

In ten minutes Ana's body temperature had dropped thirty degrees, all life signs had vanished and she was dead. Technically and legally, Tom Lambert and I were now murderers. The death certificate showed that Ana had died of a cardiac arrest induced by her main disease—impossible to dispute. When the Second Chance team arrived, her body lay peacefully in the thermal tank, maintained precisely at three degrees above freezing.

I had a hard time persuading them to let me go over to the Second Chance preparation building with Ana's body. Tom thought I just couldn't face the idea that it was all over, and he too urged me to accept the fact of her death and stay at the house with him. The preparation team didn't know what to make of it. I must have seemed like a ghoul to them, or some kind of necrophiliac. They told me that the procedures were not pleasant to watch and I would be much better off leaving everything to their experienced hands.

Of course I couldn't tell them the real reason why I had to see the whole preparation procedure, in detail. But by simply refusing to take no for an answer, I had my way.

Most Cryo-corpses were stored at liquid nitrogen temperatures—about minus two hundred degrees Celsius. I was not satisfied with that. Minus two hundred is still seventy-three degrees above absolute zero. Although all gross biological processes become imperceptible long before that, there are still plenty of chemical reactions going on and the laws of statistics guarantee that a few atoms will still have enough energy for biological changes. Mind and memory are very delicate functions. I insisted that Ana be prepared and stored as a Heli-corpse, at a couple of degrees absolute. That way the probability of change, physical or mental, went way down. The cost, naturally, went way up.

I hung around in the preparation room, ignoring all hints that I should wait outside, and I watched closely. The team finally concluded that I must be worried in case they messed up the job, so they humored me and even answered my questions. After the first few minutes it became impossible to see what was happening. As soon as all the air cavities had been filled and all the blood replaced with anti-crystalloids, Ana's body went into the pressure chamber. The temperature was held at three degrees above freezing, while the pressure was slowly raised to five thousand atmospheres. Then the temperature-drop started.

Back in the 1960's and 70's the freezing process had been done at atmospheric pressure, and the formation of ice crystals ruptured the cells as the temperature dropped. The thawed results were hardly useful, even for tissue transplants. The modern method makes use of the fact that ice can exist in many different solid forms. If you raise the pressure to three thousand atmospheres, then drop the temperature, water will remain liquid to about minus twenty degrees Celsius. And when it finally changes to a solid, it isn't the familiar form of ice—usually called Phase I. Instead, it goes to something called Phase III. Drop the temperature from there, holding the pressure constant, and at about minus twenty-five degrees it goes into another form, Phase II, and stays that way as you drop the temperature still further. If you go to five thousand atmospheres before you drop the temperature, water freezes at about minus five degrees and goes to yet another form, Phase V. The trick to avoid cell-rupture problems at freezing point is to inject anti-crystalloids, which help to inhibit crystal formation. Then by the right combination of pressure and temperature changes, work your way down toward absolute zero, passing into and through Phases V, III and II.

The process is very tricky and there is absolutely nothing to see except dial readings. The pressure chamber is made without seams or observation ports for obvious reasons. You don't get pressures of five thousand atmospheres, even in the deepest oceans. Fortunately, once you have the temperature down to a hundred degrees absolute, you can let the pressure back down to one atmosphere—otherwise Heli- and Nitro-corpse storage would be impracticable. As it is, there are three-quarters of a million of them stacked away in the Second Chance wombs, all neatly labeled and waiting the resurrection. As soon as someone figures out how.

In my opinion, it will be as hard to re-vivify most of the early Cryo-corpses as it would be to get Tutankhamen's mummy up and about again. They weren't frozen using the correct procedure and they were stored at too high a temperature. But they paid their deposits and they have the right to sit there until the rental runs out. I had started Ana with a forty-year rental but I thought of that as just a beginning.

I had a copy of Ana's medical records with me at the Second Chance preparation building. I added to them a full description of what I had observed in the Heli-corpse preparation, copied the whole thing, and made sure that a complete set was included with the file records on Ana that would be stored in the wombs. After Ana's body was taken away there, I went back to the house, fell into bed and slept like a Cryo-corpse myself for thirty hours.

When I was fully awake again, fed and bathed, I called Tom Lambert. It was time to drop the other shoe. I went over to his office, accepted a hefty drink that Tom prepared, after one look at me, for "medicinal purposes," and told him my plans.

After I had finished, he came over to my chair, poked the muscles in my shoulders and the back of my neck, pulled down my lower eyelid and looked at the exposed skin, then went and sat opposite me.

"You've been under a monstrous strain the past few months," he began. "It would be quite unnatural for your behavior or feelings to have been completely normal. In fact, you only seem normal even now because you've walled in your emotions. You don't really understand the implications of what you're suggesting."

I shook my head. "I've been thinking about this since the first day we had your terminal diagnosis."

"Then that was the day you put the lid on your real feelings. Look, Drake, Ana was a wonderful woman, and I think I have some faint idea of what you've been through. But you must try and look at this thing objectively. You can't let it become a complete obsession with you. You have a life of your own, you must live it."

While Tom was talking, I found it hard to listen to him. The room felt hot and airless and I had trouble breathing. His words seemed to come to me from a long distance and they didn't penetrate fully.

"You're still a young man, Drake, with forty or fifty good years to look forward to. You are one of the world's leading composers and your best works lie ahead. Ana performed your work better than anyone else—but there will be others who can learn. With your talent, you owe it to the rest of us not to cut yourself off in your prime.

"Drake, take my advice as your doctor and your friend. Get out of that house and take a vacation. You feel one way now, but give it a year and then see how you feel. I guarantee you things will seem quite different. You'll want to live again."

The breathless feeling was fading and I again had control of myself. Tom's reaction was just what I should have expected. I nodded agreement.

"I'll do as you say, Tom, and get away from here for a while. But if you're wrong—if, say, I come back to you in eight or ten years and ask you again, will you do it? Will you help me? I want you to give me an honest answer—and your word on it."

I saw the tension leave him. "Ten years from now? Drake, if you come back to me in eight or ten years, I'll admit I was wrong—and I'll help you to do what you want. That's a promise. But I'll bet you everything I own that you don't call me on that promise. Come on, Drake, let's drink to your future and to your next composition."

I shook my head. "Not tonight, Tom. I really have things to do. For one thing, I'm getting ready to go out of town for a while. I'll be in touch."

A half-truth. I wouldn't leave town until my plans were more firmly fixed. But I certainly expected to be in touch with Tom Lambert when the time came.

* * *

I had two problems. One was well-defined: money. I needed enough to make sure that Ana's Cryo-corpse would be kept safe into the indefinite future, until she could be thawed, her disease cured and her life begin again. There were some things I obviously couldn't guard against, such as a total collapse of the world back to barbarism, or the rejection of all present forms of currencies and commodities. Those were risks I had to accept.

The other problem was more subtle. According to Tom, it would probably be a long time—a hundred years maybe—before Ana's unusual and highly malignant disease could be cured. Suppose it were two hundred years, or even more. What knowledge of present-day society would interest people in the year 2200, or the year 2300? What should a person be, for the people of that future time to think it worthwhile to revive him? If we had a foolproof way of resuscitating the Cryo-corpses, most of the unfortunates in the Cryo-wombs would remain just where they were. Why add another to a crowded world, unless he had something special to offer?

I imagined myself back in the early nineteenth century. What could I have put in my brain, then, that would be considered valuable two hundred years later? Not politics, not art—our knowledge of them was quite adequate. Not science, or any technology—we had gone far beyond their level.

I had plenty of time to tackle the question—time, which had been denied to Ana. I could plan and calculate at my leisure. I had set a goal of ten years—that would still give us forty of the fifty we had looked for and expected. But I was willing to stretch that a couple of years, to twelve or so, if I had to. My only recreation while I planned was to estimate the probabilities that it would all work out as I hoped. Always, the chances came out depressingly low.

While I pondered my second problem, I was hard at work on my first one—making money. I turned my back on compositions that broke new ground. Instead, I took commissions, wrote commemorative pieces, gave concerts and made recordings—anything was accepted if it was lucrative. It was continuous, grinding toil. If anyone thought I was debasing my art, they were too polite to comment on it.

After four years I had my biggest stroke of luck and my money worries disappeared. I had written a set of short pieces a few years after Ana and I were married, as a kind of musical joke. Baroque forms, with baroque period harmonies, except for occasional modern harmonic twists, spice inserted where it would be most surprising and most appealing. They had been quite successful, among a limited audience. Then I gave permission for them to be used as the incidental music for a series of holovision dramas on life in eighteenth-century France, from Louis Quinze to the French Revolution. The dramas turned out to be the surprise hit of the decade. Suddenly my minuets, bourrees, gavottes, sarabandes and rondeaux were flooding out of every audio outlet, and my royalties were flooding in from every country of the globe. I established a trust fund that would guarantee continued care for Ana's Cryo-corpse for many centuries.

While all this was going on, I was feverishly busy soaking up all that I could of the personal lives of my musical contemporaries. I interviewed, entertained, courted and analyzed them—and I wrote, in summary form, of my actions. What would the people of the future want to know of the present? I was betting that it would not be the formal works, the text-book knowledge, the official biographies—they would have more than enough of those. The historians would want to hear the personal details, the chat, the gossip. They would want the equivalent of Boswell's journals and Sam Pepys' private diary. I was careful in my own writings to tantalize my reader, hinting that I knew far more than I was putting into print.

It took time, but after nine long years I felt that I was as ready as I would ever be. I hadn't given as much attention as I would have liked to the question of earning a living in two hundred years' time—but it might be fifty, two hundred, or a thousand. Could Beethoven, suddenly transported to the year 2000, have earned a living as a musician? Let me be less presumptuous—make that Spohr, or Hummel, or some other of Ludwig's less famous contemporaries. I was betting that they could, with ease, as soon as they had picked up the tricks of the time. If I were wrong, I'd do the twenty-third-century equivalent of washing dishes for a living.

I put my affairs in reasonable order, then went over to see Tom Lambert. We hadn't kept up such close contact since Ana had gone. I'd had other things on my mind, and Tom had married and was busy raising a family. He was genuinely glad to see me and fussed over me like the returning Prodigal Son. We settled in the same familiar study while Tom beamed at me and his wife went to the kitchen and killed the fatted calf.

"I hear your music everywhere, Drake," he said. "It's great to know that your career is going so well."

It wasn't, in the strictest musical sense. I had done no really first-rate composition for many years. But Tom had no ear at all for music. Perhaps that was the reason that we had always got along so well—there was no chance of any professional jealousy.

I hated to spoil Tom's pleasure, but the sooner it was done, the better. I took out the application and handed it to him without speaking.

He looked at it and all the happiness faded from his face. He shook his head in disbelief, then looked at me closely.

"Drake, when did you last take a vacation?"

I did not understand his question.

"When did you last take any sort of break from work, Drake? How long since you relaxed for an evening, or even for an hour?" he went on. "I hear that you've been working incessantly, year after year. Face it, Drake. Ana is dead. You can't live forever with your own emotions chained and harnessed."

The study seemed to be much too warm, and I was having trouble in catching my breath. I swallowed several times and finally pointed at the application that Tom was still holding in his hand. I could not speak. Tom's words washed over me but I could not understand them.

"You've done all you can do for Anastasia," he said. "She's in the best womb, she had the best preparation that you could get. You can't go on with your obsession. You're famous, you're productive—what more do you want? You want me to help you to give up all this and take the long chance that someday, God knows when, they'll find a way to revive you. Drake, you're physically healthy and in the prime of life. Don't you see? I can't help you." He looked again at the application form. "It's against my oath as a physician. I'd be taking you from health to a high odds of final death. Drake, you need real emotional help, more than I can give."

I was at last able to force myself to speak. "You gave me your word, Tom."

"My word, damn my word. You can't ask this of me." I said nothing and finally he spoke again. "Why, Drake? Why would you do this?"

"I have to, Tom." I spoke gently. "You know why, if you think about it. Unless I go on ahead, they may never wake Ana. She may be one of the last on the list. You and I know her as she really is, but what will her records show? A singer, not too famous, killed by a devastating disease. You know they'll wake the ones they need first. I have to be there. I must make sure that they wake Ana as soon as they have a certain cure. I've had the time to prepare, she didn't. I feel pretty sure that they'll wake me."

Tom looked blind with misery. "Drake, you can't see reason. You're set on this, aren't you? If I say no, you'll just go to someone else?"

I nodded, again without speaking, and he put his hands over his face. At that moment I knew that I would be able to gain his cooperation.

Five days later Tom Lambert had made all the preparations and we went together to Second Chance. I took a last look out of the window at the trees and the sunshine, then climbed slowly into the thermal tank. Tom injected the Asfanil and after a few seconds I began the long fall, dropping forever down the longest descent a man can ever make. All the way down to two degrees absolute, colder than the coldest Hell ever conceived by Dante.

* * *

Did I dream my superconducting dreams, lying there twelve degrees colder than a block of solid hydrogen? Or did I only dream that I had dreamed them, as I came slowly, slowly back through the long thaw? It makes little difference. There was an eternity of twisted images, of a procession of pale lights moving forever on a black background, long before I had any form of consciousness.

I was one of the lucky ones. The freezing process must have gone very smoothly, and all that I lost during the thaw was a few square centimeters of skin. But the pain of waking—ah, that was something else. The slow final stages, up from three degrees Celsius to normal body temperature, took thirty-six hours. For most of that time I was pierced with the agony of waking tissues and returning circulation, unable to move or even to cry out. In the last stages, before full consciousness, hearing came back before sight. I could hear speech around me, but not in any tongue that I could recognize. How far had I traveled? As the pain slowly faded, that was my first thought.

I had to wait for the answer. While I was still half-conscious, I felt the sting of an injector spray, and I went out again. Next time, though, I came up all the way, opening my eyes to a quiet sunlit room, not too different from the one in the Second Chance building where I had started the freeze.

A man and a woman were watching me, talking together softly. As soon as they saw that I was fully awake, they pressed a point on a segmented wall panel and went on with their work, lining up two complex pieces of equipment.

The man who came in presently through the smooth white sliding door was dark-haired and clean-shaven, with a smooth, almost womanly face. He came to the side of the bed and looked at me with a pleased and proprietary air.

"How are you feeling?" It was English, oddly pronounced. That was reassuring. I'd had two worries when I went under, not including the obvious one. The first was that I would be revived in just a few years' time, when they would be unable to do anything at all to help Ana. The second, that I'd surface after fifty thousand years, a living fossil, unable to communicate my needs to the men of the future.

"I am all right. But weak. Weak as a baby." I thought of trying to sit up, then changed my mind.

"You are Drake Merlin?"

"I am."

He nodded in satisfaction. "My name is Par Leon. You understand me easily?"

"Perfectly easily. Why do you ask? When am I?"

"The old languages are not easy, even with much study. In your measure, you are in the year 2374 of the prophet Christ."

Three hundred and sixty years. It was longer than I had expected. But better long than short. I had hated and feared the idea of doing it all over, again and again, diving to the bottom of the Pit and then clawing my way back up to thawed life.

"I have waited here through the warming and the treatment," went on Par Leon. "Soon I will leave you for rest, more treatment, and education. But I wanted to talk with you first. I feared a mistake in identity, that it might not be Drake Merlin who was awakened. Also, some become insane with the pain of the awakening. You are a strong man, Drake Merlin. You did not cry out or complain at all during your thawing."

Other things were on my mind. I looked across at the two doctors who were chatting together in an alien tongue as they worked. Could they cure Ana? "Language must have changed completely," I said. "I cannot understand them at all."

"Understand them? The doctors?" He looked surprised. "Of course not. Neither can I. Naturally they are speaking Medicine."

I raised my eyebrows. The look must have survived with its meaning intact, for he went on. "I speak Music and History—and of course, Universal. And I learned Old Anglic to understand your time and speak with you. But no Medicine."

"Medicine is a language?" My mind was slowed by the long sleep and the drugs.

"Of course. Like Music, or Chemistry, or Astronautics. But surely this was already true in your time. Did you not have languages for each—what is the word—discipline?"

"I suppose we did, but we didn't know it." No wonder I'd found educators, psychologists and computer scientists—to name but a few—incomprehensible. The special jargon and odd acronyms had made new languages, more alien than classical Greek. "How do you speak to the doctors?"

"For ordinary things, in Universal, which all understand. For specialized talk, such as our discussion of you, we keep a computer in the circuit to give exact concept equivalents in any pair of languages."

Multi-disciplinary projects must be hell. But then they always were. I was beginning to feel strangely and irrationally euphoric. I pulled my strength together and made a determined effort to sit up. I got my head about five centimeters from the pillow, then fell back.

"Slowly. Rome—was not built—in a day." Par Leon was clearly delighted at coming up with such a prize piece of genuine Old Anglic. "It will be moons before you are fully strong. Two more things I will tell you, then I will let your treatment go on.

"First, it was I who arranged for you to be brought here and revived. I am a musicologist, interested in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly in your own time."

One of my bets of long ago had paid off. I wondered what modern music would be like. Could I learn to compose it?

"Under our law," went on Par Leon, "you owe me for the cost of revival and treatment. That is six years' work from you. You are fortunate that you were healthy and properly frozen, or that time would have been much longer. I think you will find your work with me pleasant and interesting. Together we will write the definitive history of your own musical period."

It looked as though it would be a while before I needed to worry about earning my own living—presumably Par Leon would feed me while I was paying off my debt.

"Second, there is good news for you."

Par Leon was looking at me expectantly. "When we woke you, the doctors found certain problems—defects?—with your body and your glandular balance. They hope they have cured these. You should now live between one hundred and seventy and two hundred years.

"The gland adjustment was more subtle. You showed some madness, an uncontrollable compulsion, a fixed idea about a woman. The doctors observed this as soon as you were thawed enough to respond to the psycho-probes. They have made small chemical changes and have, they hope, corrected the problem. What are your feelings now about the woman, Ana?"

He was watching me closely. My heart was racing and I felt as though there were weights on my chest. I closed my eyes and thought about Ana for a long moment, until I was calm again. When I opened my eyes, I looked at Par Leon and shook my head feebly. "There is nothing. Just the faint feeling that something once was there. Like the scar of an old wound."

"Excellent." He smiled and nodded. "That is most satisfying. The disease she had was eliminated from us long ago by mating choice—eugenics, that is your word for it? The doctors say they could revive her but they are not sure they could make a cure. It is important that thoughts of her should not interfere with your work for me."

"Her body is still stored?"

"Of course. We keep all the Cryo-corpses for possible future use. They are like a library of the past, to open when they will serve a purpose. Who knows? Two hundred years from now her disease may be cured and if there is a need for her, she too will live and work again."

"She is near here?"

"Of course not. What an idea!" Par Leon was shocked. "We cannot afford the space on Earth. The Cryo-corpse banks are kept on Pluto, where space is cheap and cooling needs are small."

That sentence, more than any other he had spoken, wrenched me into the future. What technology was it that found it more expedient to ship a few million bodies to Pluto rather than keep them in cold storage on Earth? Three hundred and sixty years was the time from Copernicus to Einstein, from Monteverdi to Schoenberg, from the first successful American colony to the first landing on the Moon. I had come a long way.

Par Leon was still looking at me, a little anxiously. "You ask again about the woman. Are you sure that you are all right—that you are cured?"

I cursed my own stupidity. I did my best to smile reassuringly. "Don't worry. As soon as I am strong enough, we will begin our work."

He nodded. "After you have had training—that is essential. You must learn to speak Universal and Music and know enough to live in this time. It is my responsibility to see that you find activity when your work for me is finished. Rest now. I will come again tomorrow or the next day, when you will be a little stronger."

As Par Leon left, the doctors brought a piece of padded head-gear and placed it on me. I went out at once, with no time to react to its presence.

When I awoke again, I already had a smattering of Universal and a good elementary knowledge of the civilization of the year 2374. Now I understood Par Leon's confidence that I would quickly pick up the knowledge that I would need to work with him.

Facts, vocabulary and rules could be taught almost instantaneously. Use of language came more slowly. After a couple of weeks I decided that two aspects of the times would be forever beyond me: modern science, and the morality that governed the age. It was no surprise that I would find science difficult. In my own time teachers had regarded me as hopeless as I struggled with Feynman diagrams and was baffled completely by axiomatic field theory. But morals? Surely they should be comprehensible? I comforted myself with the thought that Henry the Eighth would have been appalled at the idea of killing civilians in time of war and baffled by my revulsion at the idea of public executions.

After a month of preparation Par Leon and I were able to begin our work. I would keep my part of the bargain and give him six good, long years for his great lifetime project, the analysis of the musical trends of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. More important than any facts were the perspectives I could offer him. He found it hard to believe how much man-woman and man-man relationships had affected everything in my era. With modern methods of mating dictated by selection of desirable gene combinations, he found it almost unthinkable that people should have mated randomly, on impulse. He was fascinated by my comments. It was a little irritating to him that I had become a Cryo-corpse just before a couple of events that he was especially interested in had happened, but he accepted that philosophically and with good humor.

While we worked, I learned more about the times. The Solar System was explored, known like the back of a man's hand. Venus had been terra-formed, Mars colonized, and there were permanent manned stations—some 'manned' by organic computers—on all the major satellites of the outer planets and on Pluto. Space drives were available that would get as close to the speed of light as you wanted—but few people were interested. The stars were within easy reach, but no one seemed to be stretching out his hands. Civilization seemed changed, content with the limits of the Solar System. I took hypno-courses in astronautics and space systems and became expert in the practice of drive mechanisms. The theory, I suspected, was forever beyond me.

Work went on. I shouldn't give the impression that with Par Leon it was a one-way transfer of information. From his vantage point three hundred and sixty years away, he had developed insights into what was really happening in the musical world of my earlier life that left me gasping. So that was where those musical forms were leading, and that's where Krubak had been aiming in his much-ridiculed late works! Something—perhaps the glandular adjustments that the doctors had performed on me—made working with Par Leon a pleasant experience. Previously I had always been something of a loner. To say that I was perfectly content would of course be wrong, but given my preoccupations I was more content than I would have imagined.

The text we were producing steadily grew. By the beginning of the fourth year I knew we were writing a classic together. During the sixth year we were nearing completion and Par Leon was suggesting the possibility of other collaborations.

After the work was finally complete, Par Leon—a good man by any moral standards I would ever be able to comprehend—helped me to become established as a composer. It was easier than I expected. Knowledge of the centuries before Cryo-corpses was quite spotty, with some big gaps. I could steal tricks from the musical titans of my own past, use them in the modern style, and get away with it. After three years I had a growing reputation (which I secretly knew was undeserved), a group of imitators, and—most important—a substantial financial credit at my disposal.

At last I could wait no longer. I announced that it was time for me to take a long-overdue vacation and see a little more of the Solar System. The night before I left I took Par Leon out for dinner. We went to his favorite place, ate his favorite foods, and drank his favorite wines. Even though I suspected that if I told him the truth he would be my willing accomplice, I did not tell him what we were celebrating or why the occasion was so very special. My plans might involve danger and destruction and I did not want Par Leon to bear any blame when I was gone.

* * *

So there we were. Ana and I, together again. We were heading for Canopus in the space yacht that I had rented for a two-month tour of the inner Solar System. Murderer in one era, I was now thief and worse in another. Even with forged papers to help me, it had been a desperate and violent run through the Pluto wombs and the Solar security perimeter with Ana's Cryo-corpse. Twice I had been within seconds of collision and destruction, but my pursuers' fear of death had exceeded mine. They had changed course to avoid impact and I had fled through their net.

We were traveling at just one hundred and twenty-five meters a second below the speed of light and could get within a meter a second if I chose to. We were moving fast enough. Time dilatation made three years pass on Earth for every day of shipboard time. The trip to Canopus and back would be a little more than two months for us, and two hundred years back on Earth. I felt I could use the time to relax a little. The days before I collected Ana from the Pluto wombs, followed by our escape, had been more than hectic.

I never ceased to be amazed at the capacities of the ship—which, because of time dilation, mankind seemed to have found no real use for. The mass indicator showed more than one hundred and forty thousand tons, up from a rest mass of a hundred and thirty tons.

To an outside observer I would appear to mass about eighty-eight tons and be foreshortened to a length of less than two millimeters. Although it was hidden from me by the shields, I knew that ahead of us in the forward direction the three-degree background radiation left over from the Big Bang had been Dopplershifted up to visible wavelengths. Behind us, hard X-ray sources looked like pale red stars. And we were nowhere near the ship's limits.

I had started composing again—real music, not pot-boilers or derivative works. In the room aft, Ana lay peacefully in her Cryo-tank. I felt optimistic that two hundred years would be long enough for Earth to have developed a complete and certain cure. If not, we would head out again and repeat the cycle. There was plenty of time. If Earth could not at last provide our answer, we could go elsewhere, on to the stars to search for other solutions. The ship was completely self-sustaining and had ample power for many lifetimes. I hoped that the single trip would be enough, though; one of my ambitions on our return was to find the Cryo-corpse of my friend Par Leon, and return his favor to me.

As we swept up to the great flaring beacon of Canopus, I decelerated to gravitational swing-by speeds and let the ship fall through a tight hyperbolic orbit around the star. Canopus was a fearsome sight. More than a thousand times as luminous as the Sun, it was spouting green flares of gas hundreds of millions of kilometers long. I searched for planets and found only four gas-giants, each the size of Jupiter. There were no signs of an inner-planet system.

After two days of fascinated observation I turned the ship and headed back to Earth. Were mine the first human eyes to see the twisting striations—sun-scars, not sun-spots—that gouged the boiling surface of Canopus? Like a lost soul flying from Hell-gate, I ran for the shelter of our own Solar System. If another trip out were necessary, it would be to a smaller and less turbulent star.

That sight of Hell had affected me more than anything I could remember. It burned in my mind and I could not eat, drink or sleep. The urge to see Ana again, to seek peace in her face, grew on me and at last I went aft. She lay in her tank like a Snow-goddess, with pearly eyelids and skin of milky crystal. I took only one quick look, afraid to open the tank more in case it interfered with the cooling system. It was enough. I could control myself again and think of other things.

On the tranquil return trip, I wondered again at how easy everything had seemed. I had never thought of light-speed ships and time dilation when I was making my plans so long ago. At best, I had prepared for a chancy succession of freezings and thawings for me, further and further in time until at last there was a cure and Ana could safely be revived. As it was, Ana was with me; I could safeguard her myself and there was no risk at all.

In we came, past the barren outcroppings of Pluto and on to the inner planets. With no idea how Earth would have changed in two hundred years, I had no way to decide whether I should approach slowly and cautiously or rapidly and confidently. My decision was made for me. As we rode in above the ecliptic, avoiding the asteroid belt, we were locked by a navigation and guidance beam and steered to a landing on the Moon.

The spaceport was new, massive columns set in a regular triangular array. Spaceflight at least had changed since we left. The guidance system set us down gently. Prepared for anything—or so I thought—I stepped through the lock to meet a new generation.

One man greeted me in the lock corridor, a tall dignified figure with the distant eyes of a prophet. Somehow I had expected more, perhaps a show of weapons until my identity was known.

"Welcome again to Earth-space, Drake Merlin."

The language was still Universal. I said I was prepared for anything—but I was not prepared to be recognized and named. I was taken aback, then I realized that the ship's identification was given in the communication codes, and I would be shown as the last pilot. The data retrieval presumably still held those records. I wondered what else the system showed about my wild flight from Pluto.

"Since you know my identity, then perhaps you also know my history. I am seeking assistance."

The man nodded. "We know your history, and your quest. It has come down to us from ancient times. One version holds that you lost control of your ship and were carried off to the far depths of space. Another tells that your disappearance at light-speed was intentional. Come with me, we will find conversation easier inside the city."

There were small pauses in his words, almost as though he had need to stop and think about many phrases. I wondered if Universal was a learned language to him, as Old Anglic had been to Par Leon. We settled into a reception room, close by the inner lock, and I felt a rising tension. In a few moments I would know if my search was over.

"The Cryo-corpse that you have with you in the ship. What was the disease?"

"I think there is no word for it in Universal. It disappeared from the race and from the language. The full medical description was given with the womb records."

He nodded. "Do you have the womb catalog number?"

I gave it to him. He stood motionless, eyes distant, for almost five seconds. Then he nodded again. "It can be cured. I have summoned the necessary medical resources."

Two waves of emotion swept over me. Wild joy, and an almost superstitious fear. Telepathy seemed to have been added to the human senses.

"You can transmit your thoughts?" I asked.

He looked puzzled, and again there was a brief silence. Then he smiled.

"Not in the way that you are thinking. I can exchange thoughts with others, and with the data banks, but you will be able to do the same in a few days' time. You will also be able to compute faster and better than the computer of the ship that brought you here. Look."

He turned his head to me and raised the gray hair above his left temple. There was a faint, straight scar there.

"That is the place where the implant is made. There is no reason this could not have been done in the time in which you first lived. A small set of integrated circuits handles calculations—we think in the numbers, just as in your day you did it through finger-pressure on keys.

"The implant is fully programmable. It also contains a signal transmitter and receiver, so that we can enter data and programs directly from the central computers, or from another person. I am speaking to you now in Universal by using the translation programs on the Tycho computer system."

He caught my look of misgiving. "Do not worry about this. I assure you that in a few months you will find it hard to believe that you functioned without such a service. You will have total recall, be a calculator beyond the most skillful of your time, and you will have immediate access to all the data of the Solar System—though the transmission time is considerable for the data banks of other planets.

"Now, let me query the medical team. They should have made their first examination of the Cryo-corpse in your ship."

He was again silent for a few seconds. Then his eyes widened and he looked at me with a different expression. The silence continued. I felt again a knife of tension twisting inside me, a feeling that something was going wrong.

"What is it?" I said at last. "Have you been in communication with your medical team? What do they say?"

He nodded. His eyes now seemed different, gentler and closer. He appeared to be choosing his words with great care.

"The woman in the Cryo-tank. Anastasia. When you took her from the wombs of Pluto, was the Cryo-tank fully sealed?"

I could not speak and my mind was filled with foreboding. I inclined my head a fraction of an inch.

"But you opened the tank? After you had left Pluto?" he asked gently.

"Once. To see her, after we left Canopus. I looked for only a moment, and I sealed the tank again afterward."

I could not tell him that I had been unable to stop myself, I had been driven. Suddenly I was looking at him across a gulf of five hundred and seventy years. His sad face was Tom Lambert's, and Par Leon's also. His eyes were speaking the same message.

"Drake Merlin, the Cryo-tank was intended only for storage in the wombs. After it was opened, the seal was imperfect. You understand what I am saying? Without the correct seal, the temperature in the tank was too high."

He seemed unable to speak for a few moments, and I assume that he was calling for more data from his computer banks. Then he continued. "I have checked with the medical team and with the best data sources. The damage caused to the body when the tank was opened and the seal broken cannot be repaired. There can be no revival; now or ever.

"I am sorry, Drake Merlin. Anastasia is dead. Forever dead."

Forever dead. Forever dead. The words seemed to echo Tom Lambert, from long ago. This time there was the ring of complete certainty. For each man kills the thing he loves. I had taken the long chance, and now it was over.

There was a long period of introspection, twenty billion nano-seconds of communion with the data banks and the medical teams. As my world collapsed, the barriers came down inside my mind. I noticed for the first time the faint spicy sweetness of the air fresheners, the steady dry breeze blowing past us, and the faint concert pitch A-natural of vibrating metal far along the corridor. My senses were opening again, after long centuries of hibernation.

At last he spoke again. "One possibility remains. Anastasia, the woman you knew, cannot be reanimated. Whole cells remain and she can be cloned without difficulty, but growth and education would begin anew. There is no hope of sufficient memory transfer from undamaged cells for more than a faint inkling of her former self to pass to her new body. Your former close relationship would be irrelevant to her. Should we proceed?"

I wanted to say yes, but caution held me. "Why would you do this for us? What will the price be, to me or to her?"

Shrugged shoulders had retained a meaning, although I could not see how such information would be transferred through a communication implant.

"You would be deprived of an implant and you would not share our group-consciousness. Call it an experiment. The group-mind has become curious about the behavior of single units such as you, not connected through the implants. Also, we have a feeling that in the old emotional patterns can only be called sympathy. Your suffering is unique. No quest comparable with yours is recorded in the data banks, unless it is the fragmented and confusing description of Orpheus and Eurydice.

"Shall we proceed?"

Only one answer was possible. "Proceed."

* * *

Coda and Overture.

So it begins. Anastasia lies in my arms again, for the first time in more than five hundred and seventy years. She weighs a little more than five kilos and is just three weeks out of the clone-womb. It took me an eternity to learn it, but by now I know better than to cast dice against the future. In twenty years' time, I may be no more than father and mentor to her. It will suffice.

Afterword.

This story was half-written before I realized that I was presenting the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in a science fiction setting. After that, the allusions became more conscious. It was natural to make Drake Merlin a musician, and it was clear that Hell, both hot and cold, was a logical element of the plot. Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that "Anastasia" means "resurrection," or the fact that Merlin, the old magician, was lured into everlasting sleep by a woman.

This story has a unique personal meaning to me, more than any other that I have written. If you ignore the science-fiction trimmings what is left is clearly a love story. My first choice of title was just that, "Love Story," but Erich Segal's treacly bestseller with the same name turned me against it.

THE TREASURE OF ODIREX

"The fever will break near dawn. If she wakes before that, no food. Boiled water only, if she asks for drink. I will infuse a febrifuge now, that you can give in three hours time if she is awake and the fever has not abated."

The speaker rose heavily from the bedside and moved to the fireplace, where oil lamps illuminated the medical chest standing on the oak escritoire. He was grossly overweight, with heavy limbs and a fat, pock-marked face, and a full mouth from which the front teeth had long been lost. The jaw was jowly and in need of a razor. Only the eyes belied the impression of coarseness and past disease. They were gray and patient, with a look of deep sagacity and a profound power of observation.

The other man in the room had been standing motionless by the fire, his eyes fixed on the restless form of the young woman lying on the bed. Now he bit his lip and shook his head.

"I just wish that you could stay the night, Erasmus. It is midnight now. Are you sure that the fever will lessen?"

"As sure as a man can be, Jacob, when we deal with disease. I wish that I could stay, but there is a bad case of puerperal fever in Rugeley that I must see tonight. Already the ways are becoming foul, but you know as well as I that sickness will not wait on convenience."

He looked ruefully down at his leather leggings, spattered with drying mud from the late November rain. "If anything changes for the worse, send Prindle after me. He knows the route well. And before I go I will leave you materials for tisanes, and instructions to prepare them."

He began to select from the medical chest, while his companion walked to the bedside and gazed unhappily at his wife as she tossed in fevered sleep. The man was tall and lean, with a dark sallow complexion, deeply lined and channeled. Long years of sunlight had stamped a permanent frown on his brow, and a slight, continuous trembling in his hands told of other legacies of foreign service.

Erasmus Darwin looked at him sympathetically as he sorted the drugs he needed, then took paper and quill and prepared careful written instructions for their use.

"Attend now, Jacob," he said, as he sanded the written sheets. "There is one preparation here that I would normally insist on administering myself. These are dried tubers of aconite, cut fine. You must make an infusion for three hundred pulse beats, then let it cool before you use it. It serves as a febrifuge, to reduce fever, and also as a sudorific, to induce sweating. That is good for these cases. If the fever should continue past dawn, here is dried willow bark, for an infusion to lower body temperature."

"After dawn. Yes. And these two?" Jacob Pole held up the other packets.

"Use them only in emergency. If there should be convulsions, send for me at once, but give this as a tisane until I arrive. It is dried celandine, together with dried flowers of silverweed. And if there is persistent coughing, make a decoction of these, dried flowers of speedwell."

He looked closely at the other man and nodded slightly to himself as he saw the faint hand tremor and yellowish eyes. He rummaged again in the medical chest.

"And here is one for you, Jacob." He raised his hand, stifling the other's protest. "Don't deny it. I saw the signs again when I first walked in here tonight. Malaria and Jacob Pole are old friends, are they not? Here is cinchona, Jesuit-bark, for your use. Be thankful that I have it with me—there's little enough call for it on my usual rounds. Rheumatism and breech babies, that's my fate."

During his description of the drugs and their use, his voice had been clear and unhesitating. Now, at the hint of humor, his usual stammer was creeping back in.

Jacob Pole was glad to hear it. It meant that the physician was confident enough to permit his usual optimistic outlook to re-emerge.

"Come on, then, Erasmus," he said. "Your carriage should still be ready and waiting. I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you've done for us. First Milly, and now Elizabeth. One life can never repay for two, but you know I'm ready should you ever need help yourself."

The two men took a last look at the sleeping patient, then Jacob Pole picked up the medical chest and they left the room. As they did so, the housekeeper came in to maintain the vigil on Elizabeth Pole. They walked quietly past her, down the stairs and on to the front of the silent house. Outside, the night sky was clear, with a gibbous moon nearing the full. A hovering ground mist hid the fields, and the distant lights of Lichfield seemed diffuse and deceptively close. The sulky was waiting, the old horse standing patiently between the shafts and munching quietly at her nosebag.

"That's strange." Jacob Pole paused in his work of filling the mare's nosebag. He looked down the road to the south, "Do you hear it, Erasmus? Unless my ears are going, there's a horseman coming this way, along the low road."

"Coming here?"

"Must be. There's no other house between here and Kings Bromley. But I don't expect visitors at this hour. Did you promise to make any calls out that way?"

"Not tonight."

They stood in silence as the faint jingling of harness grew steadily louder. The rider who at last came into view seemed to be mounted on a legless horse, smoothly breasting the swirling ground mist. The Derbyshire clay, still slick and moist from the afternoon rain, muffled the sound of the hooves. The rider approached like a phantom. As he grew closer they could see him swaying a little in the saddle, as though half-asleep. He cantered up to them and pulled aside the black face-cloth that covered his nose and mouth.

"I'm seeking Dr. Darwin. Dr. Erasmus Darwin." The voice was soft and weary, with the flat vowels of a northcountryman.

"Then you need seek no further." Jacob Pole stepped forward. "This is Dr. Darwin, and I am Colonel Pole. What brings you here so late?"

The other man stiffly dismounted, stretching his shoulders and bowing at the waist to relieve the cramped muscles of a long ride. He grunted in relief, then turned to Darwin.

"Your housekeeper finally agreed to tell me where you were, Doctor. My name is Thaxton, Richard Thaxton. I must talk to you."

"An urgent medical problem?"

Thaxton hesitated, looking warily at Jacob Pole. "Perhaps. Or worse." He rubbed at the black stubble on his long chin. "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?"

"Better perhaps than Macbeth could." Erasmus Darwin stood for a moment, head hunched forward on his heavy shoulders. "Who suggested that you come to me?"

"Dr. Warren."

"Warren of London?" Darwin's voice quickened with interest. "I doubt that I can do anything for you that he cannot. Why did he not treat your problem himself?"

Again the other man hesitated. "If Dr. Warren is an old friend, I fear that I bring you bad news. He can no longer sustain his practice. His health is failing, and he confided in me his belief that he is consumptive."

"Then that is bad news indeed." Darwin shook his head sadly. "To my mind, Warren is the finest diagnostician in Europe. If he has diagnosed consumption in himself, the prospect is bleak indeed."

"He holds you to be his master, especially in diseases of the mind. Dr. Darwin, I have ridden non-stop from London, and I must get back to Durham as soon as possible. But I must talk with you. Dr. Warren offers you as my only hope."

Thaxton's hands were trembling with weariness as they held the bridle. Darwin scrutinized him closely, measuring the fatigue and the despair.

"We will talk, Mr. Thaxton, never fear. But I cannot stay here to do it. There is an urgent case of childbed fever six miles west of here. It cannot wait." He gestured at the carriage. "However, if you would be willing to squeeze into the sulky with me, we could talk as we travel. And there is a hamper of food there, that you look to be sorely in need of."

"What about my horse?"

"Leave that to me." Jacob Pole stepped forward. "I'll see he gets a rub-down and feed. Erasmus, I suggest that you come back here when you are done, and take some rest yourself. I can send one of the servants over to Lichfield, to tell your household that they can reach you here."

"Aye. It bids fair to be a long night. Say that I will be home before sunset tomorrow. This is a bad time of year for fevers and agues."

"No need to tell me that, Erasmus." Jacob Pole smiled ruefully and looked at his own shaking hand, as the other two men climbed into the carriage. As they moved off into the mist, he stirred himself with an effort and led the horse slowly to the stables at the rear of the house.

* * *

"It is a long and confusing story, Dr. Darwin. Bear with me if it seems at first as though I am meandering."

Food and brandy had restored Thaxton considerably. Both men had made good use of the hamper of food and drink balanced between them on their knees. Darwin wiped his greasy hands absent-mindedly on his woollen shawl, and turned his head to face Richard Thaxton.

"Take your time. Detail is at the heart of diagnosis, and in the absence of the patient—since it is clear that you are not he—the more that you can tell me, the better."

"Not 'he', Doctor. She. Three years ago my wife, Anna, went to see Dr. Warren. At that time we were living in the heart of London, hard by St. Mary le Bow. She had been feeling lacking in strength, and was troubled by a racking cough."

"With bleeding?"

"Thank God, no. But Dr. Warren was worried that she might become phthisic. He recommended that we move away from the London style of life, to one with more of country ways and fresh air."

Darwin nodded approvingly. "Warren and I have seldom disagreed on diagnosis, and less still on treatment. You took his advice?"

"Of course. We moved back to my family home, Heartsease, near Milburn in Cumbria."

"I know the area. Up in the high fell country. Clean air, and clear sun. A good choice. But did it fail?"

"Not for my wife's general health, no. She became stronger and more robust. I could see the improvement, month by month. Then—about one year ago—there came another problem. She began to see visions."

Erasmus Darwin was silent for a long moment, while the carriage rolled steadily along the graveled roads. "I see," he said at last. "Invisible to others, I take it?"

"Invisible to all, save Anna. Our house stands north of Milburn, facing out across Cross Fell. Late at night, in our bedroom, when the Helm stands on the fell and the wind is strong from the north, she sees phantom lights moving on the fell slopes, and hears crying in the wind."

"You have looked for them yourself?"

"I, and others. I have brought our servants upstairs to look also. We see nothing, but Anna is persistent."

"I see." Darwin paused again, reflective, then shrugged. "Even so, it does not sound like a matter for serious concern. She believes that she can see what you cannot. What harm is there in a will-'o-the-wisp? It does not interfere with your life."

"It did not." Thaxton turned directly to Darwin, intense and troubled. "Until three months ago. Then Anna found a book in Durham telling of the early history of our part of the country. Cross Fell had another name, long ago. It was known as Fiends' Fell. According to legend, it was re-named Cross Fell when St. Augustine came with a cross to the fell and drove out the fiends. But Anna says that she has seen the fiends herself, on two occasions. By full moonlight, and only when the Helm is on the fell."

"Twice now you have mentioned the Helm. What is it?"

"Dense cloud, like a thunder-head. It sits as a bank, crouching over the top of Cross Fell. It does not move away, even when the wind sweeping from the top of the fell is strong enough in Milburn to overturn carts and uproot trees. Anna says that it is the source of the fiends."

Darwin nodded slowly. The two men rode on in silence for a while, both deep in thought.

"Nothing you have said so far suggests the usual mental diseases," Darwin said at last. "But the human mind is more complicated than we can guess. Tell me, has your wife any other fears or fancies? Any other fuel for her beliefs?"

"Only more legends." Thaxton shrugged apologetically. "There are other legends of the fell. According to the writings of Thomas of Appleby, in Roman times a great king, Odirex, or Odiris, lived in the high country of the fells. He acquired a great treasure. Somehow, he used it to banish the Romans from that part of the country, completely, so that they never returned."

"What was his treasure?"

"The legend does not tell. But according to Thomas of Appleby, Odirex hid his treasure on Cross Fell. Local folk say that it is there to this day, guarded by the fiends of the fell. Anna says that she has seen the guardians; that they are not of human form; and that they live on Cross Fell yet, and will sometime come down again."

Darwin had listened to this very closely, and was now sitting upright on the hard seat of the carriage. "A strange tale, indeed, and one that I have not heard before in all my reading of English myth and legend. Odirex, eh? A name to start trains of thought, if we will but remember our Latin. Odii Rex—the King of Hate. What else does Thomas of Appleby have to say about the King of Hate's Treasure?"

"Only that it was irresistible. But surely, Dr. Darwin, you are not taking these tales seriously? They are but the instruments that are turning my wife's mind away from sanity."

"Perhaps." Darwin relaxed and hunched low in hits seat. "Perhaps. In any case, I would have to see your wife to make any real decision as to her condition."

"I can bring her here to see you, if you wish. But I must do it under some subterfuge, since she does not know that I am seeking assistance for her condition. As for money, I will pay any fee that you ask,"

"No. Money is not an issue. Also, I want to see her at your home in Milburn." Darwin appeared to have made up his mind about something. "Look, I now have the responsibilities of my practice here, and as you can see they are considerable, However, I have reason to make a visit to York in a little more than two weeks' time. I will have another doctor, my locum tenens, working here in my absence. If you will meet me in York, at a time and place that we must arrange, we can go on together to Milburn. Then perhaps I can take a look at your Anna, and give you my best opinion on her—and on other matters, too."

Darwin held up his hand, to stem Thaxton's words. "Now, no thanks. We are almost arrived. You can show your appreciation in a more practical way. Have you ever assisted in country medicine, two hours after midnight? Here is your chance to try it."

* * *

"The roof of England, Jacob. Look there, to the east. We can see all the way to the sea."

Darwin was leaning out of the coach window, holding his wig on with one hand and drinking in the scenery, as they climbed slowly up the valley of the Tees, up from the eastern plain that they had followed north from the Vale of York. Jacob Pole shivered in the brisk east wind that blew through the inside of the coach, and huddled deeper into the leather greatcoat that hid everything up to his eyes.

"It's the roof, all right, blast it. Close that damn window. No man in his right mind wants to be out on the roof in the middle of December. I don't know what the devil I'm doing up here, when I could be home and warm in bed."

"Jacob, you insisted on coming, as you well know."

"Maybe. You can be the best doctor in Europe, Erasmus, and the leading inventor in the Lunar Club, but you still need a practical man to keep your feet on the ground."

Darwin grinned, intoxicated by the clear air of the fells. "Of course. The mention of treasure had nothing to do with it, did it? You came only to look after me."

"Hmph. Well, I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that. Damn it all, Erasmus, you know me. I've dived for pearls off the eastern Spice Islands; I've hunted over half the Americas for El Dorado; I've scrabbled after rubies in Persia and Baluchistan; and I've dug for diamonds all the way from Ceylon to Samarkand. And what have I got out of it? A permanent sunburn, a bum that's been bitten by all the fleas in Asia, and a steady dose of malaria three times a year. But I could no more resist coming here, when I heard Thaxton talk about Odirex's treasure, than you could stop ... philosophizing."

Darwin laughed aloud. "Ah, you're missing the point, Jacob. Look out there." He waved a brawny arm at the Tees Valley, ascending with the river before them. "There's a whole treasure right here, for the taking. If I knew how to use them, there are plants for a whole new medical pharmacopoeia, waiting for our use. I'm a botanist, and I can't even name half of them. Hey, Mr. Thaxton." He leaned further out of the coach, looking up to the driver's seat above and in front of him.

Richard Thaxton leaned perilously over the edge of the coach. "Yes, Dr. Darwin?"

"I'm seeing a hundred plants here that don't grow in the lowlands. If I describe them to you, can you arrange to get me samples of each?"

"Easily. But I should warn you, there are many others that you will not even see from the coach. Look." He stopped the carriage, swung easily down, and went off to a mossy patch a few yards to one side. When he came back, bare-headed, dark hair blowing in the breeze, he carried a small plant with broad leaves and a number of pale green tendrils with blunt, sticky ends. "There's one for your collection. Did you ever see or hear of anything like this?"

Darwin looked at it closely, smelled it, broke off a small piece of a leaf and chewed it thoughtfully. "Aye. I've not seen it for years, but I think I know what it is. Butterwort, isn't it? It rings a change on the usual order of things—animals eat plants, but this plant eats animals, or at least insects."

"That's right." Thaxton smiled. "Good thing it's only a few inches high. Imagine it ten feet tall, and you'd really have a 'Treasure of Odirex' that could have scared away the Romans."

"Good God." Jacob Pole was aghast. "You don't really think that there could be such a thing, do you—up on Cross Fell?"

"Of course not. It would have been found long ago—there are shepherds up there every day, you know. They'd have found it."

"Unless it found them," said Pole gloomily. He retreated even further into his greatcoat, Thaxton climbed back into the driver's seat and they went on their way. The great expense of the winter fells was spreading about them, a rolling sea of copper, sooty black and silver-gray. The land lay bleak, already in the grip of winter. At last, after three more hours of steady climbing, they came to Milburn. Thaxton leaned far over again, to shout into the interior of the coach. "Two more miles, and we'll be home."

The village of Milburn was small and windswept, a cluster of stone houses around the church and central common. Thaxton's coach seemed too big, out of scale with the mean buildings of the community. At the cross-roads that led away to the neighboring village of Newbiggin, Thaxton halted the carriage and pointed to the great mass of Cross Fell, lying to the north-east. Darwin looked at it with interest, and even Jacob Pole, drawn by the sight of his potential treasure-ground, ventured out of his huddle of coats and shawls.

After a couple of minutes of silent inspection of the bleak prospect, rising crest upon crest to the distant, hidden summit, Thaxton shook the reins to drive on.

"Wait—don't go yet!" Darwin's sudden cry halted Thaxton just as he was about to start the coach forward.

"What is it, Dr. Darwin? Is something the matter?"

Darwin did not reply. Instead, he opened the carriage door, and despite his bulk swung easily to the ground. He walked rapidly across the common, to where a boy about ten years old was sitting by a stone milestone. The lad was deformed of feature, with a broad, flattened skull and deep-set eyes. He was lightly dressed in the cast-off rags of an adult, and he did not seem to feel the cold despite the biting breeze.

The child started up at Darwin's approach, but did not run away. He was less than four feet tall, heavy-chested and bow-legged. Darwin stood before him and looked at him with a professional eye.

"What is it, Erasmus?" Jacob Pole had dismounted also and come hurrying after. "What's his disease?"

Darwin had placed a gentle hand on the boy's head and was slowly turning it from side to side. The child, puzzled but reassured by Darwin's calm manner and soft touch, permitted the examination without speaking.

"It is not disease, Jacob." Darwin shook his head thoughtfully. "At first I thought it must be, but the lad is quite healthy. Never in my medical experience have I seen such a peculiar physiognomy. Look at the strange bone structure of the skull, and the curious regression of the jaw. And see that odd curve, in the relation of the thoracic and cervical vertebrae." Darwin puffed out his full lips, and ran a gentle finger over the child's lumpy forehead. "Tell me, my boy, how old are you?"

The child did not reply. He looked at Darwin with soft, intelligent eyes, and made a strange, strangled noise high in his throat.

"You'll get no reply from Jimmy," said Thaxton, who had followed behind the other two men. "He's mute—bright enough, and he'll follow any instructions. But he can't speak."

Darwin nodded, and ran his hand lightly over the boy's throat and larynx. "Yes, there's something odd about the structure here, too. The hyoid bone is malformed, and the thyroid prominence is absent. Tell me, Mr. Thaxton, are the boy's parents from these parts of Cumbria?" Darwin smiled encouragingly at the lad, though his own lack of front teeth made that more frightening than reassuring. A piece of silver, pressed into the small hand, was more successful. The boy smiled back tentatively, and pointed upwards towards the Fell.

"See, he understands you very well," said Thaxton. "His mother is up on Dufton Fell, he says." He turned away, drawing the other two men after him, before he continued in a low voice. "Jimmy's a sad case. His mother's a shepherdess, daft Molly Metcalf. She's a poor lass who doesn't have much in the way of wits. Just bright enough to tend the sheep, up on Dufton Fell and Cross Fell."

"And the father?" asked Darwin.

"God only knows. Some vagrant. Anyway, Jimmy's not much to look at, but his brain is all right. He'll never be much more than a dwarf, I fear, but there will always be work for him here in the village. He's trustworthy and obedient, and we've all grown used to the way he looks."

"He's certainly no beauty though," said Jacob Pole. "That's a strange deformity. You know what he reminds me of? When I was in the Spice Islands, there was a creature that the Dutch called the Orange-Lord, or Orang-Laut, or some such name. It lived in the deep forest, and it was very shy; but I once saw a body that the natives brought in. The skull and bone structure reminded me of your Jimmy."

"It's a long way from the Spice Islands to Cross Fell, Colonel," said Thaxton. "And you can guess what Anna has been saying—that daft Molly was impregnated by a fiend of the fell, some diabolical incubus, and Jimmy is the devilish result. What do you think of that, Dr. Darwin?"

Erasmus Darwin had been listening absent-mindedly, from time to time turning back for another look at the boy. "I don't know what to think yet, Mr. Thaxton," he finally replied. "But I can assure you of one thing. The only way that a human woman bears children is from impregnation by a human male. Your wife's chatter about an incubus is unscientific piffle."

"Impregnation is not always necessary, Doctor. Are you not forgetting the virgin birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ?"

"Don't get him started on that," said Jacob Pole hastily, "or we'll be here all day. You may not know it, Mr. Thaxton, but this is Erasmus Darwin, the doctor, the inventor, the philosopher, the poet, the everything—except the Christian."

Thaxton smiled. "I had heard as much, to tell the truth, from Dr. Warren. 'If you are wise,' he said, 'you will not dispute religion with Dr. Darwin. If you are wiser yet, you will not dispute anything with him.'"

The men climbed back into the coach and drove slowly on through Milburn, to Thaxton's house north of the village. Before they went inside the big stone-built structure, they again took a long look at Cross Fell, rising vast to the north-east.

"It's clear today," said Thaxton. "That means that the Helm won't be on the fell, and Anna won't be seeing or hearing anything tonight. Dr. Darwin, I don't know what your diagnosis will be, but I swear to God that the next twenty-four hours will be the hardest for me of any that I can remember. Come in, now, and welcome to Heartsease."

Darwin did not speak, but he patted the other man sympathetically on the shoulder with a firm hand. They walked together to the front door of the house.

* * *

"They are taking an awfully long time." Richard Thaxton rose from his seat by the fire and began to pace the study, looking now and again at the ceiling.

"As they should be," said Jacob Pole reassuringly. "Richard, sit down and relax. I know Erasmus, and I've seen him work many times in the past. He has the greatest power of observation and invention of any man I ever met. He sees disease where others can see nothing—in the way a man walks, or talks, or stands, or even lies. And he is supremely thorough, and in the event of dire need, supremely innovative. I owe to him the lives of my wife, Elizabeth, and my daughter Milly. He will come down when he is satisfied, not before."

Thaxton did not reply. He stood at the window, looking out at the inscrutable bulk of Cross Fell. A strong north-east wind, harsh and gusting, bent the leafless boughs of the fruit trees in the kitchen garden outside the study window, and swirled around the isolated house,

"See up there," he said at last. "The Helm is growing. In another two hours the top of the fell will be invisible."

Pole rose also and joined him by the window. At the top of the fell, a solid bank of roiling cloud was forming, unmoved by the strengthening wind. As they watched, it grew and thickened, shrouding the higher slopes and slowly moving lower.

"Will it be there tonight?" asked Pole.

"Until dawn. Guarding the treasure. God, I'm beginning to talk like Anna. It's catching me, too."

"Has there ever been any real treasure on the fell? Gold, or silver?"

"I don't know. Lead, there surely is. It has been mined since Roman times, and there are mine workings all over this area. As for gold, I have heard much talk of it, but talk is easy. I have never seen nuggets, or even dust."

Jacob Pole rubbed his hands together. "That's meat and drink to me, Richard. Fiends or no fiends, there's nothing I'd like better than to spend a few days prospecting around Cross Fell. I've travelled a lot further than this, to places a good deal more inhospitable, on much less evidence. Yes, and I've fought off a fair number of fiends, too—human ones."

"And you have found gold?"

Pole grimaced. "Pox on it, you would ask me that. Never, not a pinch big enough to cover a whore's modesty. But luck can change any time. This may be it."

Richard Thaxton pushed his fingers through his black, bushy hair, and smiled at Jacob Pole indulgently. "I've often wondered what would take a man to the top of Cross Fell in mid-winter. I think I've found out. One thing I'll wager, you'll not get Dr. Darwin to go with you. He's carrying a bit too much weight for that sort of enterprise."

As he spoke, they heard the clump of footsteps on the stairs above them. Thaxton at once fell silent and his manner became tense and somber. When Erasmus Darwin entered, Thaxton raised his eyebrows questioningly but did not speak.

"Sane as I am," said Darwin at once, smiling. "And a good deal saner than Jacob."

"—or than you, Richard," added Anna Thaxton, coming in lightly behind Darwin. She was a thin, dark-haired woman, with high cheekbones and sparkling gray eyes. She crossed the room and put her arms around her husband. "As soon as Dr. Darwin had convinced himself that I was sane, he confessed to me that he was not really here to test me for a consumptive condition, but to determine my mental state. Now"—she smiled smugly—"he wants to do some tests on you, my love."

Richard Thaxton pressed his wife to him as though he meant to crack her ribs. Then her final words penetrated, and he looked at her in astonishment.

"Me! You're joking. I've seen no fiends."

"Exactly," said Darwin, He moved over to the table by the study window, where an array of food dishes had been laid out. "You saw nothing. For the past hour, I have been testing your wife's sight and hearing. Both are phenomenally acute, especially at low levels. Now I want to know about yours."

"But others were present when Anna saw her fiends. Surely we are not all blind and deaf."

"Certainly, all are not. But Anna tells me that when she saw and heard her mysteries on Cross Fell, it was night and you alone were with her upstairs. You saw and heard nothing. Then when you brought others, they also saw and heard nothing. But they came from lighted rooms downstairs. It takes many minutes for human eyes to acquire their full night vision—and it is hard for a room full of people, no matter how they try, to remain fully silent. So, I say again, how good are your eyes and ears?"

"I tell you, they are excellent!" exclaimed Thaxton.

"And I tell you, they are indifferently good!" replied Anna Thaxton. "Who cannot tell a rook from a blackbird at thirty paces, or count the sheep on Cross Fell?"

They still held each other close, arguing across each other's shoulder. Darwin looked on with amusement, quietly but systematically helping himself to fruit, clotted cream, Stilton cheese and West Indian sweetmeats from the side table. "Come, Mr. Thaxton," he said at last. "Surely you are not more prepared to believe that your wife is mad, than believe yourself a little myopic? Short-sightedness is no crime."

Thaxton shrugged. "All right. All right." He held his wife at arms' length, his hands on her shoulders. "Anna, I've never won an argument with you yet, and if Dr. Darwin is on your side I may as well surrender early. Do your tests. But if you are right, what does that mean?"

Darwin munched on a candied quince, and rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. "Why, then we no longer have a medical problem, but something much more intriguing and pleasant. You see, it means that Anna is really seeing something up on Cross Fell, when the Helm sits on the upland. And that is most interesting to me—be it fiends, fairies, hobgoblins, or simple human skullduggery. Come, my equipment for the tests is upstairs. It will take about an hour, and we should be finished well before dinner."

As they left, Jacob Pole went again to the window. The Helm had grown. It stood now like a great, gray animal, crouching at the top of Cross Fell and menacing the nearer lowlands. Pole sighed.

"Human skullduggery?" he said to Anna Thaxton. "I hope not. I'll take fiends, goblins and all—if the Treasure of Odirex is up there with them. Better ghouls and gold together, than neither one."

* * *

"Tonight? You must be joking!"

"And why not tonight, Mr. Thaxton? The Helm sits on the fell, the night is clear, and the moon is rising. What better time for Anna's nocturnal visitants?"

Richard Thaxton looked with concern at Darwin's bulk, uncertain how to phrase his thought. "Do you think it wise, for a man your age—."

"—forty-six," said Darwin.

"—your age, to undergo exertion on the fell, at night? You are not so young, and the effort will be great. You are not—lissom; and it—."

"I'm fat," said Darwin. "I regard that as healthy. Good food wards off disease. This world has a simple rule: eat or be eaten. I am not thin, and less agile than a younger man, but I have a sound constitution, and no ailment but a persistent gout. Jacob and I will have no problem."

"Colonel Pole also?"

"Try and stop him. Right, Jacob? He's been lusting to get up on that fell, ever since he heard the magic word 'treasure', back in Lichfield. Like a youth, ready to mount his first—er—horse."

"I've noticed that," said Anna Thaxton. She smiled at Darwin. "And thank you, Doctor, for tempering your simile for a lady's ears. Now, if your mind is set on Cross Fell tonight, you will need provisions. What should they be?"

Darwin bowed his head, and smiled his ruined smile. "I have always observed, Mrs. Thaxton, that in practical decision-making, men cannot compare with women. We will need food, shielded lamps, warm blankets, and tinder and flint."

"No weapons, or crucifix?" asked Richard Thaxton.

"Weapons, on Cross Fell at night, would offer more danger to us than to anyone else. As for the crucifix, it has been my experience that it has great influence—on those who are already convinced of its powers. Now, where on the fell should we take up our position?"

"If you are going," said Thaxton suddenly, "then I will go with you. I could not let you wander the fell, alone."

"No. You must stay here. I do not think that we will need help, but if I am wrong we rely on you to summon and lead it. Remain here with Anna. We will signal you—three lantern flashes from us will be a call for help, four a sign that all is well. Now, where should we position ourselves? Out of sight, but close to the lights you saw."

"Come to the window," said Anna Thaxton. "See where the spur juts out, like the beak of an eagle? That is your best waiting point. The lights show close there, when the fiends of the fell appear. They return there, before dawn. You will not be able to see the actual point of their appearance from the spur. Keep a watch on our bedroom. I will show a light there if the fiends appear. When that happens, skirt the spur, following westward. After a quarter of a mile or so the lights on the fell should be visible to you."

As she was speaking, the sound of the dinner gong rang through the house.

"I hope," she continued. "That you will be able to eat something, although I know you must be conscious of the labors and excitement of the coming night."

Erasmus Darwin regarded her with astonishment. "Something? Mrs. Thaxton, I have awaited the dinner bell for the past hour, with the liveliest anticipation. I am famished. Pray, lead the way. We can discuss our preparations further while we dine."

* * *

"We should have brought a timepiece with us, Erasmus. I wonder what the time is. We must have been here three or four hours already."

"A little after midnight, if the moon is keeping to her usual schedule. Are you warm enough?"

"Not too bad. Thank God for these blankets. It's colder than a witch's tit up here. How much longer? Suppose they don't put in an appearance at all? Or the weather changes? It's already beginning to cloud up a little."

"Then we'll have struggled up here and been half frozen for nothing. We could never track them with no moon. We'd kill ourselves, walking the fell blind."

The two men were squatted on the hillside, facing south-west towards Heartsease. They were swaddled in heavy woollen blankets, and their exhaled breath rose white before them. In the moonlight they could clearly see the village of Milburn, far below, etched in black and silver. The Thaxton house stood apart from the rest, lamps showing in the lower rooms but completely dark above. Between Darwin and Pole sat two shielded oil lanterns. Unless the side shutters were unhooked and opened, the lanterns were visible only from directly above.

"It's a good thing we can see the house without needing any sort of spyglass," said Pole, slipping his brass brandy flask back into his coat after a substantial swig. "Holding it steady for a long time when it's as cold as this would be no joke. If there are fiends living up here, they'll need a fair stock of Hell-fire with them, just to keep from freezing. Damn those clouds."

He looked up again at the moon, showing now through broken streaks of cover. As he did so, he felt Darwin's touch on his arm.

"There it is, Jacob!" he breathed. "In the bedroom. Now, watch for the signal."

They waited, tense and alert, as the light in the window dimmed, returned, and dimmed again. After a longer absence, it came back once more, then remained bright.

"In the usual place, where Anna hoped they might be," said Darwin. "Show our lantern, to let Thaxton know we've understood their signal. Then let's be off, while the moon lights the way."

The path skirting the tor was narrow and rocky, picked out precariously between steep screes and jagged outcroppings. Moving cautiously and quietly, they tried to watch both their footing and the fell ahead of them. Jacob Pole, leading the way, suddenly stopped.

"There they are," he said softly.

Three hundred yards ahead, where the rolling cloud bank of the Helm dipped lower to meet the broken slope of the scarp face, four yellow torches flickered and bobbed. Close to each one, bigger and more diffuse, moved a blue-green phosphorescent glow .

The two men edged closer. The blue-green glow gradually resolved itself to squat, misshapen forms, humanoid but strangely incomplete. "Erasmus," whispered Jacob. "They are headless!"

"I think not," came the soft answer. "Watch closely, when the torches are close to their bodies. You can see that the torch light reflects from their heads—but there is no blue light shining there. Their bodies alone are outlined by it." As he spoke, a despairing animal scream echoed over the fell. Jacob Pole gripped Darwin's arm fiercely.

"Sheep," said Darwin tersely. "Throat cut. That bubbling cry is blood in the windpipe. Keep moving towards them, Jacob. I want to get a good look at them."

After a moment's hesitation, Pole again began to move slowly forward. But now the lights were retreating steadily uphill, back towards the shrouding cloud bank of the Helm.

"Faster, Jacob. We've got to keep them in sight and be close to them before they go into the cloud. The light from their torches won't carry more than a few yards in that."

Darwin's weight was beginning to take its toll. He fell behind, puffing and grunting, as Pole's lanky figure loped rapidly ahead, around the tor and up the steep slope. He paused once and looked about him, then was off uphill again, into the moving fog at the edge of the Helm. Darwin, arriving at last at the same spot, could see no sign of him. Chest heaving, he stopped to catch his breath.

"It's no good." Pole's voice came like a disembodied spirit, over from the left of the hillside. A second later he suddenly emerged from the cloud bank. "They vanished into thin air, right about here. Just like that." He snapped his fingers. "I can't understand how they could have gone so fast. The cloud isn't so thick here. Maybe they can turn to air."

Darwin sat down heavily on a flat-topped rock. "More likely they snuffed their torches."

"But then I'd still have seen the body-glow."

"So let's risk the use of the lanterns, and have a good look around here. There should be some trace of them. It's a long way back to Heartsease, and I don't fancy this climb again tomorrow night."

They opened the shutters of the lanterns and moved cautiously about the hillside. Darwin knew that the Thaxtons would be watching from Heartsease, and puzzling over what they had seen. He interrupted his search long enough to send a signal: four lantern flashes—all goes well.

"Here's the answer." Jacob Pole had halted fifty feet away, in the very fringe of the Helm. "I ought to have guessed it, after the talk that Thaxton and I had earlier. He told me yesterday that there are old workings all over this area. Lead, this one, or maybe tin."

The mine shaft was set almost horizontally into the hillside, a rough-walled tunnel just tall enough for a crouching man. Darwin stooped to look at the rock fragments inside the entrance.

"It's lead," he said, holding the lantern low. "See, this is galena, and this is blue fluorspar—the same Blue John that we find back in Derbyshire. And here is a lump of what I take to be barytes—heavy spar. Feel the weight of it. There have been lead mines up here on the fells for two thousand years, since before the Romans came to Britain, but I thought they were all in disuse now. Most of them are miles north and east of this."

"I doubt that this one is being used for lead mining," replied Jacob Pole. "And I doubt if the creatures that we saw are lead miners. Maybe it's my malaria, playing up again because it's so cold here." He shivered all over. "But I've got a feeling of evil when I look in that shaft. You know the old saying: iron bars are forged on Earth, gold bars are forged in Hell. That's the way to the treasure, in there. I know it."

"Jacob, you're too romantic. You see four poachers killing a sheep, and you have visions of a treasure trove. What makes you think that the Treasure of Odirex is gold?"

"It's the natural assumption. What else would it be?"

"I could speculate. But I will wager it is not gold. That wouldn't have served to get rid of the Romans, or any invader. Remember the Danegeld—that didn't work, did it?"

As he spoke, he was craning forward into the tunnel, the lantern held out ahead of him.

"No sign of them in here." He sniffed. "But this is the way they went. Smell the resin? That's from their torches. Well, I suppose that is all for tonight. Come on, we'd best begin the descent back to the house. It is a pity we cannot go further now."

"Descent to the house? Of course we can follow them, Erasmus. That's what we came for, isn't it?"

"Surely. But on the surface of the fell, not through pit tunnels. We lack ropes and markers. But now that we know exactly where to begin, our task is easy. We can return here tomorrow with men and equipment, by daylight—perhaps we can even bring a tracking hound. All we need to do now is to leave a marker here, that can be seen easily when we come here again."

"I suppose you're right." Pole shrugged, and turned disconsolately for another look at the tunnel entrance. "Damn it, Erasmus, I'd like to go in there, evil or no evil. I hate to get this far and then turn tail."

"If the Treasure of Odirex is in there, it has waited for you for fifteen hundred years. It can wait another day. Let us begin the descent."

They retraced their steps, Jacob very reluctantly, to the downward path. In a few dozen paces they were clear of the fringes of the Helm. And there they stopped. While they had examined the entrance to the mine, the cloud cover had increased rapidly. Instead of seeing a moon shining strongly through light, broken clumps, they were limited to occasional fleeting glimpses through an almost continuous mass of clouds.

Jacob Pole shrugged, and looked slyly at Darwin. "This is bad, Erasmus. We can't go down in this light. It would be suicide. How long is it until dawn?"

"Nearly four hours, at a guess. It's bad luck, but we are only a week from winter solstice. There's nothing else for it, we must settle down here and make the best of it, until dawn comes and we have enough light to make a safe descent."

"Aye, you're right." Jacob Pole turned and looked thoughtfully back up the hill. "Since we're stuck here for hours, Erasmus, wouldn't it make sense to use the time, and take a quick look inside the entrance of the mine? After all, we do have the lanterns—and it may well be warmer inside."

"—or drier, or any other of fifty reasons you could find for me, eh?" Darwin held his lantern up to Pole's face, studying the eyes and the set of the mouth. He sighed. "I don't know if you're shivering with excitement or malaria, but you need warmth and rest. I wonder now about the wisdom of this excursion. All right. Let us go back up to the mine, on two conditions: we descend again to Heartsease at first light, and we take no risks of becoming lost in the mine."

"I've been in a hundred mines, all over the world, and I have yet to get lost in one. Let me go first. I know how to spot weak places in the supports."

"Aye. And if there's treasure to be found—which I doubt—I'd not be the one to deprive you of the first look."

Jacob Pole smiled. He placed one lantern on the ground, unshuttered. "Let this stay here, so Richard and Anna can see it. Remember, we promised to signal them every three hours that all is well. Now, let's go to it—fiends or no fiends." He turned to begin the climb back to the abandoned mine. As he did so, Darwin caught the expression on his face. He was nervous and pale, but in his eyes was the look of a small child approaching the door of a toy-shop.

* * *

On a second inspection, made this time with the knowledge that they would be entering and exploring it, the mine tunnel looked much narrower and the walls less secure. Jacob, lantern partially shuttered to send a narrow beam forward, led the way. They went cautiously into the interior of the shaft. After a slight initial upward slant, the tunnel began to curve down, into the heart of the hill. The walls and roof were damp to the touch, and every few yards small rivulets of water ran steadily down the walls, glistening like a layer of ice in the light of the lantern.

Thirty paces on, they came to a branch in the tunnel. Jacob Pole bent low and studied the uneven floor.

"Left, I think," he whispered. "What will we do if we meet the things that live here?"

"You should have asked that question before we set out," replied Darwin softly. "As for me, that is exactly what I am here for. I am less interested in any treasure."

Jacob Pole stopped, and turned in the narrow tunnel. "Erasmus, you never cease to amaze me. I know what drives me on, what makes me willing to come into a place like this at the devil's dancing-hour. And I know that I'm in a cold sweat of fear and anticipation. But why aren't you terrified? Don't you think a meeting with the fiends would carry great danger for us?"

"Less danger than you fear. I assume that these creatures, like ourselves, are of natural origin. If I am wrong on that, my whole view of the world is wrong. Now, these fiends hide on the fell, and they come out only at night. There are no tales that say they kill people, or capture them. So I believe that they fear us—far more than we fear them."

"Speak for yourself," muttered Pole.

"Remember," Darwin swept on, "when there is a struggle for living space, the stronger and fiercer animals drive out the weaker and more gentle—who then must perforce inhabit a less desirable habitat if they are to survive. For example, look at the history of the tribes that conquered Britain. In each case—."

"Sweet Christ!" Jacob Pole looked round him nervously. "Not a lecture, Erasmus. This isn't the time or the place for it. And not so loud! I'll take the history lesson some other time."

He turned his back and led the way into the left branch of the tunnel. Darwin sniffed, then followed. He was almost fat enough to block the tunnel completely, and had to walk very carefully. After a few steps he stopped again and looked closely at a part of the tunnel wall that had been shored up with rough timbers.

"Jacob, bring the light back for a moment, would you? This working has been used recently—new wood in some of the braces. And look at this."

"Sheep wool, caught on the splintered wood here. It's still dry. We're on the correct path all right. Keep going."

"Aye. But what now?"

Pole pointed the beam from the lantern ahead, to where the tunnel broadened into a domed chamber with a smooth floor. They walked forward together. At the other side of the chamber was a deep crevasse. Across it, leading to a dark opening on the other side, ran a bridge of rope guides and wooden planks, secured by heavy timbers buttressed between floor and ceiling. Pole shone his lantern across the gap, into the tunnel on the other side, but there was nothing to be seen there. They walked together to the edge.

"It looks sturdy enough. What do you think, Erasmus?"

"I think we have gone far enough. It would be foolhardy to risk a crossing. What lies below?"

Pole swung the lantern to throw the beam downward. The pit was steep-sided. About eight feet below the brink lay black, silent water, its surface smooth and unrippled. To right and left, the drowned chasm continued as far as the lantern beam would carry. Pole swung the light back to the bridge, inspecting the timbers and supporting ropes.

"Seems solid to me. Why don't I take a quick look at the other side, while you hold the lantern."

Darwin did not reply at once. He was staring down into the crevasse, a puzzled frown on his heavy face.

"Jacob, cover the lantern for a moment. I think I can see something down there, like a faint shining."

"Like gold?" The voice was hopeful. Pole shuttered the lantern and they stared in silence into the darkness. After a few moments, it became more visible to them. An eerie, blue-green glow lit the pit below, beginning about three feet below the lip and continuing to the water beneath. As their eyes adjusted, they began to see a faint pattern to the light.

"Jacob, it's growing there. It must be a moss, or a fungus. Or am I going blind?"

"It's a growth. But how can a living thing glow like that?"

"Some fungi shine in the dark, and so do some animals—glow-worms, and fireflies. But I never heard of anything like this growth. It's in regular lines—as though it had been set out purposely, to provide light at the bridge. Jacob, I must have a sample of that!"

In the excited tone of voice, Pole recognized echoes of his own feelings when he thought about hunting for treasure. Darwin knelt on the rocky floor, then laboriously lowered himself at full length by the side of the chasm.

"Here, let me do that, Erasmus. You're not built for it."

"No. I can get it. You know, this is the same glow that we saw on the creatures on Cross Fell."

He reached over the edge. His groping fingers were ten inches short of the highest growth. Grunting with the effort, Darwin took hold of the loose end of a trailing rope from the bridge, and levered himself farther over the edge.

"Erasmus, don't be a fool. Wait until we can come back here tomorrow, with the others."

Darwin grunted again, this time in triumph. "Got it!"

The victory was short-lived. As he spoke the hemp of the rope, rotted by many years of damp, disintegrated in his grasp. His body, off-balance, tilted over the edge. With a startled oath and a titanic splash, Darwin plunged head-first into the dark water beneath.

"Erasmus!" Jacob Pole swung around and groped futilely in the darkness for several seconds. He at last located the shuttered lantern, opened it and swung its beam onto the surface of the pool. There was no sign of Darwin. Pole ripped off his greatcoat and shoes. He stepped to the edge, hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and jumped feet-first into the unknown depths of the black, silent pool.

* * *

"More than three hours now. They should have signalled."

"Perhaps they did." Richard Thaxton squinted out of the window at the dark hillside.

"No. The lantern has been steady. I'm worried, Richard. See, they set it exactly where the lights of the fiends disappeared into the Helm." Anna shook her head unhappily. "It must be freezing up on Cross Fell tonight. I just can't believe that they would sit there for three hours without moving or signalling, unless they were in trouble."

"Nor can I." Thaxton opened the window and stuck his head out. He stared at the bleak hillside. "It's no good, Anna. Even when the moon was up I couldn't see a thing up there except for the lantern—and I can only just see that when you tell me where to look. Let's give it another half hour. If they don't signal, I'll go up after them."

"Richard, be reasonable. Wait until dawn. You'll have an accident yourself if you go up there in the dark—you know your eyes aren't good enough to let you be sure-footed, even by full moonlight."

The freezing wind gusted in through the open window. Thaxton pulled it closed. "At dawn. I suppose you're right. I'd best check the supplies now. I'll take medicine and splints, but I hope to God we won't be needing them." He stood up. "I'll tell two of the gardeners that we may have to make a rescue trip on the fell at first light. Now, love, you try and get some sleep. You've been glued to that window most of the night."

"I will." Anna Thaxton smiled at her husband as he left the room. But she did not move from her vigil by the window, nor did her eyes move from the single point of light high on the bleak slopes of Cross Fell.

* * *

The first shock was the cold of the water, enfolding and piercing his body like an iron maiden. Jacob Pole gasped as the air was driven from his lungs, and flinched at the thought of total immersion. Then he realized that he was still standing, head clear of the surface. The pool was less than five feet deep.

He moved around in the water, feeling with his stockinged feet until he touched a soft object on the bottom. Bracing himself, he filled his lungs and submerged to grope beneath the surface. The cold was frightful. It numbed his hands instantly, but he grasped awkwardly at Darwin's arm and shoulder, and hoisted the body to the level of his own chest. Blinking water from his eyes, he turned the still form so that its head was clear of the surface. Then he stood there shuddering, filled with the awful conviction that he was supporting a corpse.

After a few seconds, Darwin began to cough and retch. Pole muttered a prayer of relief and hung on grimly until the spasms lessened.

"What happened?" Darwin's voice was weak and uncertain.

"You fell in head-first. You must have banged your head on the bottom." Pole's reply came through chattering teeth. His arms and hands had lost all feeling.

"I'm sorry, Jacob." Darwin was racked by another spell of coughing. "I behaved like an absolute fool." He roused himself. "Look, I can stand now. We'd better get out of here before we freeze."

"Easier said than done. Look at the height of the edge. And I see no purchase on either side."

"We'll have to try it anyway. Climb on my shoulders and see if you can reach."

Scrabbling with frozen hands on the smooth rock face, Pole clambered laboriously to Darwin's shoulders, leaned against the side of the pit, and reached upwards. His straining fingertips were a foot short of the lip. He felt in vain for some hold on the rock. Finally he swore and slid back into the icy water.

"No good. Can't reach. We're stuck."

"We can't afford to be. An hour in here will kill us. This water must be snow-melt from the fell. It's close to freezing."

"I don't give a damn where it came from—and I'm well aware of its temperature. What now, Erasmus? The feeling is going out of my legs."

"If we can't go up, we must go along. Let's follow the pool to the left here."

"We'll be moving away from the lantern light up there."

"We can live without light, but not without heat. Come on, Jacob."

They set off, water up to their necks. After a few yards it was clear that the depth was increasing. They reversed their steps and moved in the other direction along the silent pool. The water level began to drop gradually as they went, to their chests, then to their waists. By the time it was down to their knees they had left the light of the lantern far behind and were wading on through total darkness. At last, Jacob Pole bent forward and touched his fingers to the ground.

"Erasmus, we're out of the water completely. It's quite dry underfoot. Can you see anything?"

"Not a glimmer. Stay close. We don't want to get separated here."

Pole shivered violently. "I thought that was the end. What a way to die—stand until our strength was gone, then down, like trapped rats in a sewer pipe."

"Aye. I didn't care for the thought. 'O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown, what dreadful noise of waters in my ears, what sights of ugly death within my eyes.' At least poor Clarence smothered in a livelier liquid than black fell water. Jacob, do you have your brandy flask? Your hand is ice."

"Left it in my greatcoat, along with the tinder and flint. Erasmus, I can't go much further. That water drained all my strength away."

"Pity there's not more flesh on your bones." Darwin halted and placed his hand on Pole's shoulder, feeling the shuddering tremors that were shaking the other's skinny frame. "Jacob, we have to keep moving. To halt now is to die, until our clothes become dry. Come, I will support you."

The two men stumbled blindly on, feeling their way along the walls. All sense of direction was quickly lost in the labyrinth of narrow, branching tunnels. As they walked, Darwin felt warmth and new life slowly begin to diffuse through his chilled body. But Pole's shivering continued, and soon he would have fallen without Darwin's arm to offer support.

After half an hour more of wandering through the interminable tunnels, Darwin stopped again and put his hand to Pole's forehead. It burned beneath his touch.

"I know, 'Rasmus, you don't need to tell me." Pole's voice was faint. "I've felt this fever before—but then I was safe in bed. I'm done for. No Peruvian-bark for me here on Cross Fell."

"Jacob, we must keep going. Bear up. I've got cinchona in my medical chest, back at the house. We'll find a way out of here before too long. Just hang on, and let's keep moving."

"Can't do it." Pole laughed. "Wish I could. I'm all ready for a full military funeral, by the sound of it. I can hear the fife and drum now, ready to play me out. They're whispering away there, inside my head. Let me lie down, and have some peace. I never warranted a military band for my exit, even if it's only a ghostly one."

"Hush, Jacob. Save your strength. Here, rest all your weight on me." Darwin bent to take Pole's arm across his shoulder, supported him about the waist, and began to move forward again. His mood was somber. Pole needed medical attention—promptly—or death would soon succeed delirium.

Twenty seconds later, Darwin stopped dead, mouth gaping and eyes staring into the darkness. He was beginning to hear it, too—a faint, fluting tone, thin and ethereal, punctuated by the harsh deeper tone of drums. He turned his head, seeking some direction for the sound, but it was too echoing and diffuse.

"Jacob—can you tell me where it seems to be coming from?"

The reply was muttered and unintelligible. Pole, his body fevered and shaken with ague, was not fully conscious. Darwin had no choice but to go forward again, feeling his way along the damp, slick walls with their occasional timber support beams. Little by little, the sound was growing. It was a primitive, energetic music, shrill pan-pipes backed by a taut, rhythmic drum-beat. At last Darwin also became aware of a faint reddish light, flickering far along the tunnel. He laid Pole's semi-conscious body gently on the rocky floor. Then, light-footed for a man of his bulk, he walked silently towards the source of the light.

The man-made tunnel he was in emerged suddenly into a natural chimney in the rock, twenty yards across and of indefinite height. It narrowed as it went up and up, as far as the eye could follow. Twenty feet above, on the opposite side from Darwin, a broad, flat ledge projected from the chimney wall.

Darwin stepped clear of the tunnel and looked up. Two fires, fuelled with wood and peat, burned on the ledge and lit the chimney with an orange-red glow. Spreading columns of smoke, rising in a slight updraft, showed that the cleft in the rock served as a chimney in the other sense. Behind the fires, a group of dark figures moved on the ledge to the wild music that echoed from the sheer walls of rock.

Darwin watched in fascination the misshapen forms that provided a grotesque back-drop to the smoky, flickering fires. There was a curious sense of regularity, of hypnotic ritual, in their ordered movements. A man less firmly rooted in rational convictions would have seen the fiends of Hell, capering with diabolic intent, but Darwin looked on with an analytical eye. He longed for a closer view of an anatomy so oddly distorted from the familiar human form.

The dancers, squat and shaggy, averaged no more than four feet in height. They were long-bodied and long-armed, and naked except for skirts and head-dresses. But their movements, seen through the curtain of smoke and firelight, were graceful and well-coordinated. The musicians, set back beyond the range of the firelight, played on and the silent dance continued.

Darwin watched, until the urgency of the situation again bore in on him. Jacob had to have warmth and proper care. The dancers might be ferocious aggressors, even cannibals; but whatever they were, they had fire. Almost certainly, they would also have warm food and drink, and a place to rest. There was no choice—and, deep inside, there was also the old, overwhelming curiosity.

Darwin walked forward until he was about twenty feet from the base of the ledge. He planted his feet solidly, legs apart, tilted his head back and shouted up to the dancers,

* * *

"It's no good, Anna. Not a sign of them." Richard Thaxton slumped on the stone bench in the front yard, haggard and weary. "They must have gone up, into the Helm. There's not a thing we can do for them until it lifts."

Anna Thaxton looked at her husband with a worried frown. His face was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. "Love, you did all you could. If they got lost on the fell, they'd be sensible enough to stay in one place until the Helm moves off the highlands. Where did you find the lantern—in the same place as I saw it last night?"

"The same place exactly. There." Thaxton pointed a long arm at the slope of Cross Fell. "The trouble is, that's right where the Helm begins. We couldn't see much of anything. I think it's thicker now than it was last night."

He stood up wearily and began to walk towards the house. His steps were heavy and dragging on the cobbled yard. "I'm all in. Let me get a hot bath and a few hours sleep, and if the fell clears by evening we'll go up again. Damn this weather." He rubbed his hand over his shoulder. "It leaches a man's bones to chalk."

Anna watched her husband go inside, then she stooped and began collecting the packages of food and medicine that Richard in his weariness had dropped carelessly to the floor. As she rose, arms full, she found a small figure by her side.

"What is it, Jimmy?" The deformed lad had been leaning by the wall of the house, silent as always, listening to their conversation.

He tugged at her sleeve, then pointed to the fell. As usual he was lightly dressed, but he seemed quite unaware of the cold and the light drizzle. His eyes were full of urgent meaning.

"You heard what Mr. Thaxton said to me?" asked Anna. Jimmy nodded. Again he tugged at her arm, pulling her towards the fell. Then he puffed out his cheeks and hunched his misshapen head down on his shoulders. Anna laughed. Despite Jimmy's grotesque appearance, he had somehow managed a creditable impersonation of Erasmus Darwin.

"And you think you know where Dr. Darwin is?" said Anna.

The lad nodded once more, and tapped his chest. Again, he pointed to Cross Fell. Anna hesitated, looking back at the house. After the long climb and a frantic four-hour search, Richard was already exhausted. It would serve no purpose to interrupt his rest.

"Let me go inside and write a note for Mr. Thaxton," she said. "Here, you take the food and medicine. We may need them." She handed the packages to Jimmy. "And I'll go and get warm clothing for both of us from the house. How about Colonel Pole?"

Jimmy smiled. He drew himself up to his full height of three feet nine inches. Anna laughed aloud. The size and build were wrong, but the angular set of the head and the slightly trembling hands were without question Jacob Pole.

"Give me five minutes," she said. "Then you can lead the way. I hope you are right—and I hope we are in time."

* * *

At Darwin's hail, the dancers froze. In a few seconds, pipe and drum fell silent. There was a moment of suspense, while the tableau on the ledge held, a frieze of demons against the dark background of the cave wall. Then the scene melted to wild confusion. The dancers milled about, most hurrying back beyond the range of the firelight, a few others creeping forward to the edge to gaze on the unkempt figure below.

"Do you understand me?" called Darwin.

There was no reply. He cursed softly. How to ask for help, when a common language was lacking? After a few moments he turned, went rapidly back into the tunnel, and felt his way to where Jacob Pole lay. Lifting him gently, he went back to the fire-lit chamber and stood there silently, the body of his unconscious friend cradled in his arms.

There was a long pause. At last, one of the fiends came to the very edge of the ledge and stared intently at the two men. After a second of inspection he turned and clucked gently to his companions. Three of them hurried away into the darkness. When they returned, they bore a long coil of rope which they cast over the edge of the ledge. The first fiend clucked again. He swung himself over the edge and climbed nimbly down, prehensile toes gripping the rope.

At the base he halted. Darwin stood motionless. At last, the other cautiously approached. His face was a devil-mask, streaked with red ocher from mouth to ears—but the eyes were soft and dark, deep-socketed beneath the heavy brow.

Darwin held forward Pole's fevered body. "My friend is sick," he said. The other started back at his voice, then again came slowly closer.

"See, red-man," said Darwin. "He burns with fever." Again, he nodded at Pole's silent form.

The fiend came closer yet. He looked at Pole's face, then put a hesitant hand out to feel the forehead. He nodded, and muttered to himself. He felt for the pulse in Pole's scrawny neck and grunted unhappily.

Darwin looked at him with an approving eye. "Aye, doctor," he said quietly. "See the problem? If we don't get him back home, to where I can give him medicine and venesection, he'll be dead in a few hours. What can you do for us, red-man?"

The fiend showed no sign of understanding Darwin's speech, but he looked at the other with soft, intelligent eyes. Darwin, no Adonis at the best of times, was something to look at. His clothes, wrinkled and smeared, hung like damp rags on his corpulent body. He had lost hat and wig in his descent into the pool, and his face was grimed and filthy from their travels through the tunnels of the mine. On his left hand, a deep cut had left streaks of dried blood along wrist and sleeve.

Darwin stood there steadily, heedless of his appearance. The fiend finally completed his inspection. He took Darwin by the arm and led him to the foot of the ledge. After slipping the rope around Jacob Pole's body and making it fast, he called a liquid phrase to the group above. The fiends on the ledge hoisted Pole to the top and then—with considerably greater effort—did the same for Darwin. The red-smeared fiend shinned up lightly after them. The others, taking the rope with them, quietly hurried away into the dark tunnel that led from the cave.

Together, Darwin and the fiend lifted Jacob Pole and laid him gently on a heap of sheepskins and rabbit furs. The red-man then also hurried away into the darkness. For the first time, Darwin was alone and could take a good look around him on the ledge.

The area was a communal meeting-place and eating-place. Two sheep carcasses, butchered and dressed, hung from a wooden tripod near one of the fires. Pole lay on his pile of furs about ten feet from the other fire, near enough for a comforting warmth to be cast on the sick man. Darwin walked over to the large black pot that nestled in the coals there. He bent over and sniffed it. Hot water. Useful, but not the source of the tantalizing smell that had filled his nostrils. He walked to the other fire, where an identical pot had been placed. He sniffed again. His stomach rumbled sympathetically. It was mutton broth. Darwin helped himself with the clay ladle and sipped appreciatively while he completed his inspection of the ledge.

Clay pots were stacked neatly along the nearer wall. Above them a series of murals had been painted in red and yellow ocher. The figures were stylized, with little attempt at realism in the portrayal of the fiends. Darwin was intrigued to see that many of them were set in forest backgrounds, showing boars and deer mingled with the distorted human figures. The animals, unlike the humanoids, were portrayed with full realism.

The other wall also bore markings, but they were more mysterious—a complex, intertwined network of lines and curves, drawn out in yellow ocher. At the foot of that wall lay a heap of jackets and leggings, made from crudely stitched rabbit skins. Darwin's eye would have passed by them, but he caught a faint bluish gleam from the ones farthest from the fire. He walked over to them and picked one up. It shone faintly, with the blue-green glow that they had seen moving on Cross Fell, and again near the rope bridge.

Darwin took a tuft of fur between finger and thumb, pulled it loose and slipped it into his damp coat pocket. As he did so, the red-man appeared from the tunnel, closely followed by a female fiend. She had a red-streaked face with similar markings, and was carrying a rough wooden box. Giving Darwin a wide berth, she set the box beside Jacob Pole. The red-man brought a clay pot from the heap by the wall, filled it with scalding water from the cauldron by the fire, and opened the wooden box. He seemed absorbed in his actions, completely oblivious to Darwin's presence.

"I see," said Darwin reflectively. "A medicine chest, no less. And what, I wonder, are the prescriptive resources available to the medical practitioner on Cross Fell?" He stooped to watch the red-man at his work.

"That one looks familiar enough. Dried bilberries—though I doubt their efficacy. And this is—what?—bog rosemary? And here is dried tormentil, and blue gentian. Sound enough." He picked up a petal and chewed on it thoughtfully. "Aye, and flowers of violet, and dried holly leaves. You have the right ideas, red-man—I've used those myself in emergency. But what the devil are these others?" He sniffed at the dried leaves. "This could be bog asphodel, and I think these may be tansy and spleenwort. But this?" He shook his head. "A fungus, surely—but surely not fly agaric!"

While he mused, the fiend was equally absorbed. He selected pinches of various dried materials from the chest and dropped them into the scalding water in the clay pot. He muttered quietly to himself as he did so, a soft stream of liquid syllables.

At last he seemed satisfied. Darwin leaned over and sniffed the infusion. He shook his head again.

"It worries me. I doubt that this is any better than prancing around Jacob to ward off evil spirits. But my judgment is worthless with those drugs. Do your best, red-man."

The other looked up at Darwin, peering from under his heavy brows. He smiled, and closed the box. The female fiend picked up the clay pot, while the red-man went to Jacob Pole and lifted him gently to a sitting position. Darwin came forward to help. Between them, they managed to get most of the hot liquid down Pole's throat.

Darwin had thought that the female was naked except for her short skirt. At close quarters, he was intrigued to see that she also wore an elaborately carved necklace. He bent forward for a closer look at it. Then his medical interests also asserted themselves, and he ran a gentle hand along her collarbone, noting the unfamiliar curvature as it bent towards her shoulder. The woman whimpered softly and shied away from his touch.

At this, the red-man looked up from his inspection of Jacob Pole and grunted his disapproval. He gently laid Pole back on the heap of skins. Then he patted the female reassuringly on the arm, removed her necklace, and handed it to Darwin. He pointed to the red streaks on her face. She turned and went back into the tunnel, and the red-man patted his own cheek and then followed her. Darwin, mystified, was alone again with Pole. The other fiends had shown no inclination to return.

Darwin looked thoughtfully at the remains of the infusion, and listened to Pole's deep, labored breathing. At last, he settled down on a second pile of skins, a few yards from the fire, and looked closely at the necklace he had been given. He finally put it into a pocket of his coat, and sat there, deep in speculation. One theory seemed to have been weakened by recent events.

When the red-streaked fiend returned, he had with him another female, slightly taller and heavier than the first. He grunted in greeting to Darwin and pointed to the single line of yellow ocher on her cheek. Before Darwin could rise, he had turned and slipped swiftly away again into the recesses of the dark tunnel.

The female went over to Pole, felt his brow, and tucked sheepskins around him. She listened to his breathing, then, apparently satisfied, she came and squatted down on the pile of skins, opposite Darwin. Like the other, she wore a brief skirt of sewn rabbit skins and a similar necklace, less heavy and with simpler carving. For the first time, Darwin had the chance for a leisured assessment of fiend anatomy, with adequate illumination. He leaned forward and looked at the curious variations on the familiar human theme.

"You have about the same cranial capacity, I'd judge," he said to her quietly. She seemed reassured by his gentle voice. "But look at these supra-orbital arches—-they're heavier than human. And you have less cartilage in your nose. Hm." He leaned forward, and ran his hand softly behind and under her ear. She shivered, but did not flinch. They sat, cross-legged, opposite each other on the piled skins.

"I don't feel any mastoid process behind the ear," Darwin continued. "And this jaw and cheek is odd—see the maxilla. Aye, and I know where I've seen that jawline recently. Splendid teeth. If only I had my commonplace book with me, I'd like sketches. Well, memory must suffice."

He looked at the shoulder and rib cage and moved his index finger along them, tracing their lines. Suddenly he leaned forward and plucked something tiny from the female's left breast. He peered at it closely with every evidence of satisfaction.

"Pulex irritans, if I'm any judge. Pity I don't have a magnifying glass with me. Anyway, that seems to complete the proof. You know what it shows, my dear?" He looked up at the female. She stared back impassively with soft, glowing eyes. Darwin leaned forward again.

"Now, with your leave I'd like a better look at this abdominal structure. Very heavy musculature here—see how well-developed the rectus abdominis is. Ah, thank you, that makes inspection a good deal easier." Darwin nodded absently as the female reached to her side and removed her brief skirt of rabbit skins. He traced the line of ribbed muscle tissue to the front of the pelvis. "Aye, and an odd pelvic structure, too. See this, the pubic ramus seems flattened, just at this point." He palpated it gently.

"Here! What the devil are you doing!" Darwin suddenly sat bolt upright. The female fiend sitting before him, naked except for her ornate necklace, had reached forward to him and signalled her intentions in unmistakable terms.

"No, my dear. You mustn't do that."

Darwin stood up. The female stood up also. He backed away from her hurriedly. She smiled playfully and pursued him, despite his protests, round and round the fire.

"There you go, Erasmus. I turn my back on you for one second, and you're playing ring-a-ring-a-rosy with a succubus." Pole's voice came from behind Darwin. It sounded cracked and rusty, like an unoiled hinge, but it was rational and humorous.

The female squeaked in surprise at the unexpected sound. She ran to the heap of furs, snatched up her skirt, and fled back into the dark opening in the wall of the ledge. Darwin, no less surprised, went over to the bed of furs where Pole lay.

"Jacob, I can't believe it. Only an hour ago, you were running a high fever and beginning to babble of green fields." He felt Pole's forehead. "Back down to normal, I judge. How do you feel?"

"Not bad. Damn sight better than I did when we got out of that water. And I'm hungry. I could dine on a dead Turk."

"We can do better than that. Just lie there." Darwin went across to the other fire, filled a bowl with mutton stew from the big pot, and carried it back. "Get this inside you."

Pole sniffed it suspiciously. He grunted with pleasure and began to sip at it. "Good. Needs salt, though. You seem to be on surprisingly good terms with the fiends, Erasmus. Taking their food like this, without so much as a by-your-leave. And if I hadn't been awakened by your cavorting, you'd be playing the two-backed beast this very second with that young female."

"Nonsense." Darwin looked pained. "Jacob, she simply misunderstood what I was doing. And I fear the red-man mistook the nature of my interest in the other female, also. It should have been clear to you that I was examining her anatomy."

"—and she yours." Pole smiled smugly. "A natural preliminary to swiving. Well, Erasmus, that will be a rare tale for the members of the Lunar Society if we ever get back to Lichfield."

"Jacob—." Darwin cut off his protest when he saw the gleeful expression on Pole's face. "Drink your broth and then rest. We have to get you strong enough to walk, if we're ever to get out of this place. Not that we can do much on that front. I've no idea how to find our way back—we'll need the assistance of the fiends, if they will agree to give it to us."

Pole lay back and closed his eyes. "Now this really feels like a treasure hunt, Erasmus. It wouldn't be right without the hardships. For thirty years I've been fly-bitten, sun-baked, wind-scoured and snow-blind. I've eaten food that the jackals turned their noses up at. I've drunk water that smelled like old bat's-piss. And all for treasure. I tell you, we're getting close. At least there are no crocodiles here. I almost lost my arse to one, chasing emeralds on the Ganges."

He roused himself briefly, and looked around him again. "Erasmus, where are the fiends? They're the key to the treasure. They guard it."

"Maybe they do," said Darwin soothingly. "You rest now. They'll be back. It must be as big a shock to them as it was to us—more, because they had no warning that we'd be here."

Darwin paused and shook his head. There was an annoying ringing in his ears, as though they were still filled with fell water from the underground pool.

"I'll keep watch for them, Jacob," he went on. "And if I can, I'll ask them about the treasure."

"Wake me before you do that," said Pole. He settled back and closed his eyes. Then he cracked one open again and peered at Darwin from under the lowered lid. "Remember, Erasmus—keep your hands off the fillies." He lay back with a contented smile.

Darwin bristled, then also smiled. Jacob was on the mend. He sat down again by the fire, ears still buzzing and singing, and began to look in more detail at the contents of the medical chest.

When the fiend returned he gave Darwin a look that was half-smile and half-reproach. It was easy to guess what the females must have said to him. Darwin felt embarrassed, and he was relieved when the fiend went at once to Pole and felt his pulse. He looked pleased with himself at the result, and lifted Pole's eyelid to look at the white. The empty bowl of stew sitting by Pole's side also seemed to meet with his approval. He pointed at the pot that had contained the infusion of medicaments, and smiled triumphantly at Darwin.

"I know," said Darwin. "And I'm mightily impressed, red-man. I want to know a lot more about that treatment, if we can manage to communicate with each other. I'll be happy to trade my knowledge of medicinal botany for yours, lowland for highland. No," he added, as he saw the other's actions, "That isn't necessary for me."

The fiend had filled another pot with hot water while Darwin had been talking, and dropped into it a handful of dried fungus. He was holding it forward to Darwin. When the latter refused it, he became more insistent. He placed the bowl on the ground and tapped his chest. While Darwin watched closely, he drew back his lips from his teeth, shivered violently all over, and held cupped hands to groin and armpit to indicate swellings there.

Darwin rubbed his aching eyes, and frowned. The fiend's mimicry was suggestive—but of something that seemed flatly impossible. Unless there was a danger, here on Cross Fell, of....

The insight was sudden, but clear. The legends, the King of Hate, the Treasure, the departure of the Romans from Cross Fell—at once all this made a coherent picture, and an alarming one. He blinked. The air around him suddenly seemed to swirl and teem with a hidden peril. He reached forward quickly and took the bowl.

"Perhaps I am wrong in my interpretation, red-man," he said. "I hope so, for my own sake. But now I must take a chance on your good intentions."

He lifted the bowl and drank, then puckered his lips with distaste. The contents were dark and bitter, strongly astringent and full of tannin. The red fiend smiled at him in satisfaction when he lowered the empty bowl.

"Now, red-man, to business," said Darwin. He picked up the medicine chest and walked with it over to the fire. He hunkered down where the light was best and gestured to the red fiend to join him. The other seemed to understand exactly what was on Darwin's mind. He opened the lid of the box, pulled out a packet wrapped in sheep-gut, and held it up for Darwin's inspection.

How should one convey the use of a drug—assuming that a use were known—without words? Darwin prepared for a difficult problem in communication. Both the symptoms and the treatment for specific diseases would have to be shown using mimicry and primitive verbal exchange. He shook off his fatigue and leaned forward eagerly to meet the challenge.

Three hours later, he looked away from the red fiend and rubbed his eyes. Progress was excellent—but something was very wrong. His head was aching, the blood pounding in his temples. The buzzing and singing in his ears had worsened, and was accompanied by a blurring of vision and a feeling of nausea. The complex pattern of lines on the cave wall seemed to be moving, to have become a writhing tangle of shifting yellow tendrils.

He looked back at the fiend. The other was smiling—but what had previously seemed to be a look of friendship could equally well be read as a grin of savage triumph. Had he badly misunderstood the meaning of the infusion he had drunk earlier?

Darwin put his hands to the floor and attempted to steady himself. He struggled to rise to his feet, but it was too late. The cave was spiralling around him, the murals dipping and weaving. His chest was constricted, his stomach churning.

The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the red-streaked mask of the fiend, bending towards him as he slipped senseless to the floor of the cave.

* * *

Seen through the soft but relentless drizzle, Cross Fell was a dismal place. Silver was muted to dreary gray, and sable and copper gleams were washed out in the pale afternoon light. Anna Thaxton followed Jimmy up the steep slopes, already doubting her wisdom in setting out. The Helm stood steady and forbidding, three hundred feet above them—and although she had looked closely in all directions as they climbed, she had seen no sign of Pole and Darwin. She halted.

"Jimmy, how much further? I'm tired, and we'll soon be into the Helm."

The boy turned and smiled. He pointed to a rock a couple of hundred yards away, then turned and pointed upwards. Anna frowned, then nodded.

"All right, Jimmy. I can walk that far. But are you sure you know where to find them?"

The lad nodded, then shrugged.

"Not sure, but you think so, eh? All right. Let's keep going."

Anna followed him upwards. Two minutes later, she stopped and peered at a scorched patch of heather.

"There's been a lantern set down here, Jimmy—and recently. We must be on the right track."

They were at the very brink of the Helm. Jimmy paused for a moment, as though taking accurate bearings, then moved up again into the heavy mist. Anna followed close behind him. Inside the Helm, visibility dropped to a few yards.

Jimmy stopped again and motioned Anna to his side. He pointed to a dark opening in the side of the hill.

"In here, Jimmy? You think they may have gone in, following the fiends?"

The boy nodded and led the way confidently forward into the tunnel. After a moment of hesitation, Anna followed him. The darkness inside quickly became impenetrable. She was forced to catch hold of the shawl that she had given Jimmy to wear, and dog his heels closely. He made his way steadily through the narrow tunnels, with no sign of uncertainty or confusion. At last he paused and drew Anna alongside him. They had reached a rough wooden bridge across a deep chasm, lit faintly from below by a ghostly gleaming on the walls. Far below, the light reflected from the surface of a dark and silent pool.

Jimmy pointed to a group of objects near the edge: a lantern, shoes and a greatcoat. Anna went to them and picked up the coat.

"Colonel Pole's." She looked down at the unruffled water below. "Jimmy, do you know what happened to them?"

The boy looked uncomfortable. He went to examine the frayed end of the trailing rope that hung from the bridge, then shook his head. He set out across the bridge, and Anna again took hold of the shawl. Soon they were again in total darkness. This time they seemed to grope their way along for an eternity. The path twisted and branched, moving upward and downward in the depths of the fell.

At last they made a final turn and emerged without warning into a broad clear area, full of people and lit by flickering firelight. Anna, dazzled after long minutes in total darkness, looked about her in confusion. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized with horror that the figures in front of her were not men and women—they were fiends, powerfully-built and misshapen. She looked at the fires, and shivered at what she saw, Stretched out on piles of rough skins lay Erasmus Darwin and Jacob Pole, unconscious or dead. Two fiends, their faces red-daubed and hideous, crouched over Darwin's body.

Anna did not cry out. She turned, twisted herself loose of Jimmy's attempt to restrain her, and ran blindly back along the tunnel. She went at top speed, though she had no idea where her steps might lead her, or how she might escape from the fiends. When it came, the collision of her head with the timber roof brace was so quick and unexpected that she had no awareness of the contact before she fell unconscious to the rocky floor. She was spared the sound of the footsteps that pursued her steadily along the dark tunnel.

* * *

Richard Thaxton surfaced from an uneasy sleep. The taste of exhaustion was still in his mouth. He sat up on the bed, looked out at the sky, and tried to orient himself. He frowned. He had asked Anna to waken him at three o'clock for another search of Cross Fell, but outside the window the twilight was already far advanced. It must be well past four, on the gray December afternoon. Could it be that Darwin and Pole had returned, and Anna had simply decided to let him sleep to a natural waking, before she told him the news?

He stood up, went to the dresser, and splashed cold water on his face from the jug there. Rubbing his eyes, he went to the window. Outside the weather had changed again. The light drizzle of the forenoon had been replaced by a thick fog. He could scarcely see the tops of the trees in the kitchen garden, a faint tangle of dark lines bedewed with water droplets.

The first floor of the house was cold and silent. He thought of going down to the servants' quarters, then changed his mind and went through to the study. The log fire there had been banked high by one of the maids. He picked up Anna's note from the table, and went to read it by the fireside. At the first words, his concern for Darwin and Pole was overwhelmed by fear for Anna's safety. In winter, in a dense Cumbrian fog, Cross Fell could be a death-trap unless a man knew every inch of its sudden slopes and treacherous, shifting screes.

Thaxton put on his warmest clothing and hurried out into the gathering darkness. In this weather, the safest way up to the fell would be from the north, where the paths were wider—but the southern approach, although steeper and more treacherous, was a good deal more direct. He hesitated, then began to climb the southern slope, moving at top speed on the rough path that had been worn over the years by men and animals. On all sides, the world ended five yards from him in a wall of mist. The wind had dropped completely, and he felt like a man climbing forever in a small, silent bowl of gray fog. After ten minutes, he was forced to stop and catch his breath. He looked around. The folly of his actions was suddenly clear to him. He should now be on his way to Milburn, to organize a full-scale search party, rather than scrambling over Cross Fell, alone and unprepared. Should he turn now, and go back down? That would surely be the wiser course.

His thoughts were interrupted by a low, fluting whistle, sounding through the fog. It seemed to come from his left, and a good distance below him. The mist made distance and direction difficult to judge. He held his breath and stood motionless, listening intently. After a few seconds it came again, a breathy call that the fog swallowed up without an echo.

Leaving the path, he moved down and to the left, stumbling over the sodden tussocks of grass and clumps of heather, and peering ahead into the darkness. Twice, he almost fell, and finally he stopped again. It was no good, he could not negotiate the side of Cross Fell in the darkness and mist. Exploration would have to wait until conditions were better, despite his desperate anxiety. The only thing to do now was to return to the house. He would rest there as best he could, and be fit for another ascent, with assistance, when weather and light permitted it. Whatever had happened to Anna, it would not help her if he were to suffer injury now, up on the Fell. He began a cautious descent.

At last he saw the light in the upper bedroom of the house shining faintly through the mist below him. Down at ground level, on the left side of the house, he fancied that he could see a group of dim lights, moving in the kitchen garden. That was surprising. He halted, and peered again through the darkness. While he watched, another low whistle behind him was answered, close to the house. The lights grew dimmer.

He was gripped by a sudden, unreasoning fear. Heedless of possible falls, he began to plunge full-tilt down the hillside.

The house and garden seemed quiet and normal, the grounds empty. He made his way into the kitchen garden, where he had seen the moving lights. It too seemed deserted, but along the wall of the house he could dimly see three oblong mounds. He walked over to them, and was suddenly close enough to see them clearly. He gasped. Side by side, bound firmly to rough stretchers of wood and leather, lay the bodies of Darwin, Pole and Anna, all well wrapped in sheepskins. Anna's cold forehead was heavily bandaged, with a strip torn from her linen blouse. Thaxton dropped to his knee and put his ear to her chest, full of foreboding.

Before he could hear the heartbeat, he heard Darwin's voice behind him.

"We're here, are we?" it said. "About time, too. I must have dropped off to sleep again. Now, Richard, give me a hand to undo myself, will you. I'm better off than Anna and Jacob, but we're all as sick as dogs. Myself, I don't seem to have the strength of a gnat."

* * *

"What a sight. Reminds me of the field hospital after a Pathan skirmish." Jacob Pole looked round him with gloomy satisfaction. The study at Heartsease had been converted into a temporary sick-room, and Darwin, Anna Thaxton and Pole himself were all sitting in armchairs by the fire, swaddled in blankets.

Richard Thaxton stood facing them, leaning on the mantelpiece. "So what happened to Jimmy?" he said.

"I don't know," said Darwin. He had broken one of his own rules, and was drinking a mug of hot mulled wine. "He started out with us, leading the way down while the rest of them carried the stretchers. Then I fell asleep, and I don't know what happened to him. I suspect you'll find him over in Milburn, wherever he usually lives there. He did his job, getting us back here, so he's earned a rest."

"He's earned more than a rest," said Thaxton. "I don't know how he did it. I was up on the fell myself in that fog, and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face."

"He knows the fell from top to bottom, Jimmy does," said Anna. "He was almost raised there." She was looking pale, with a livid bruise and a long gash marring her smooth forehead. She shivered. "Richard, you've no idea what it was like, following him through the dark in that tunnel, then suddenly coming across the fiends. It was like a scene out of hell—the smoke, and the shapes. I felt sure they had killed the Colonel and Dr. Darwin."

"They hardly needed to," said Pole wryly. "We came damned close to doing that for ourselves. Erasmus nearly drowned, and I caught the worst fever that I've had since the time that I was in Madagascar, looking for star sapphires. Never found one. I had to settle for a handful of garnets and a dose of dysentery. Story of my life, that. Good thing that Erasmus could give me the medicine, up on the fell."

"And that was no thanks to me," said Darwin. "The fiends saved you, not me. They seem to have their own substitute for cinchona. I'll have to try that when we get back home."

"Aye," said Pole. "And we'll have to stop calling them fiends. Though they aren't human, and look a bit on the fiendish side—if appearances bother you. Anyway, they did right by me."

Richard Thaxton dropped another log on the fire, and pushed a second tray of meat pasties and mince pies closer to Darwin. "But at least there are fiends on Cross Fell," he remarked. "Anna was right and I was wrong. It was a hard way to prove it, though, with the three of you all sick. What I find hardest to believe is that they've been there in the mines for fifteen hundred years or more, and we've not known it. Think, our history means nothing to them. The Norman Conquest, the Spanish Armada—they mean no more to them than last year's rebellion in the American Colonies. It all passed them by."

Darwin swallowed a mouthful of pie and shook his head. "You're both wrong."

"Wrong? About what?" asked Thaxton.

"Jacob is wrong when he says they are not human, and you are wrong when you say they've been up in the mines for fifteen hundred years."

There was an immediate outcry from the other three. "Of course they're not human," said Pole.

Darwin sighed, and regretfully put down the rest of his pie, back on the dish. "All right, if you want evidence, I suppose I'll have to give it to you. First, and in my opinion the weakest proof, consider their anatomy. It's different from ours, but only in detail—in small ways. There are many fewer differences between us and the fiends than there are between us and, say, a monkey or a great ape. More like the difference between us and a Moor, or a Chinee.

"That's the first point. The second one is more subtle. The flea."

"You'd better have some proof more substantial than that, Erasmus," said Pole. "You can't build a very big case around a flea."

"You can, if you are a doctor. I found a flea on one of the young females—you saw her yourself, Jacob."

"If she's the one you were hoping to roger, Erasmus, I certainly did. But I didn't see any flea. Of course, I didn't have the privilege of getting as close as you apparently did."

"All the same, although you didn't see it, I found a flea on her—our old friend, Pulex irritans, if I'm a reliable judge. Now, you scholars of diabolism and the world of demons. When did you ever hear of any demon that had fleas—and the same sort of fleas that plague us?"

The other three looked at each other, while Darwin took advantage of the brief silence to poke around one of his back teeth for a piece of gristle that had lodged there.

"All right," said Anna at last. "A fiend had a flea. It's still poor evidence that fiends are human. Dogs have fleas, too. Are you suggesting they should be called human? There's more to humanity than fleas."

"There is," agreed Darwin. "In fact, there's one final test for humanity, the only one I know that never fails."

The room was silent for a moment. "You mean, possession of an immortal soul?" asked Richard Thaxton at last, in a hushed voice.

Jacob Pole winced, and looked at Darwin in alarm.

"I won't get off on the issue of religious beliefs," said Darwin calmly. "The proof that I have in mind is much more tangible, and much more easily tested. It is this: a being is human if and only if it can mate with a known human, and produce offspring. Now, having seen the fiends, isn't it obvious to you, Jacob, and to you, Anna, that Jimmy was sired by one of the fiends? One of them impregnated daft Molly Metcalf, up on the fell."

Anna Thaxton and Jacob Pole looked at each other. Jacob nodded, and Anna bit her lip. "He's quite right, Richard," she said. "Now I think about it, Jimmy looks just like a cross of a human with a fiend. Not only that, he knows his way perfectly through all the tunnels, and seems quite comfortable there."

"So, my first point is made," said Darwin. "The fiends are basically human, though they are a variation on our usual human form—more different, perhaps, than a Chinaman, but not much more so."

"But how could they exist?" asked Thaxton. "Unless they were created as one of the original races of man?"

"I don't know if there really were any 'original races of man'. To my mind, all animal forms develop and change, as their needs change. There is a continuous succession of small changes, produced I know not how—perhaps by the changes to their surroundings. The beasts we finally see are the result of this long succession—and that includes Man."

Darwin sat back and picked up his pie for a second attack. Pole, who had heard much the same thing several times before, seemed unmoved, but Anna and Richard were clearly uncomfortable with Darwin's statements.

"You realize," said Thaxton cautiously, "that your statements are at variance with all the teachings of the Church—and with the words of the Bible?"

"I do," said Darwin indistinctly, through a mouth crammed full of pie. He held out his mug for a refill of the spiced wine.

"But what of your other assertion, Erasmus?" said Pole. "If the fiends were not on Cross Fell for the past fifteen hundred years, then where the devil were they? And what were they doing?"

Darwin sighed. He was torn between his love of food and his fondness for exposition. "You didn't listen to me properly, Jacob. I never said they weren't about Cross Fell. I said they weren't living in the mine tunnels for fifteen hundred years."

"Then where were they?" asked Anna.

"Why, living on the surface—mainly, I suspect, in the woods. Their murals showed many forest scenes. Perhaps they were in Milburn Forest, south-east of Cross Fell. Think, now, there have been legends of wood-folk in England as long as history has records. Puck, Robin Goodfellow, the dryads—the stories have many forms, and they are very widespread."

"But if they lived in the woods," said Anna, "why would they move to the mine tunnels? And when did they do it?"

"When? I don't know exactly," said Darwin. "But I would imagine that it was when we began to clear the forests of England, just a few hundred years ago. We began to destroy their homes."

"Wouldn't they have resisted, if that were true?" asked Pole.

"If they were really fiends, they might—or if they were like us. But I believe that they are a very peaceful people. You saw how gentle they were with us, how they cared for us when we were sick—even though we must have frightened them at least as much as they disturbed us. We were the aggressors. We drove them to live in the disused mines."

"Surely they do not propose to live there forever?" asked Anna. "Should they not be helped, and brought forth to live normally?"

Darwin shook his head. "Beware the missionary spirit, my dear. They want to be allowed to live their own lives. In any case, I do not believe they would survive if they tried to mingle with us. They are already a losing race, dwindling in numbers."

"How do you know'" asked Pole.

Darwin shrugged. "Partly guesswork, I must admit. But if they could not compete with us before, they will inevitably lose again in the battle for living-space. I told you on the fell, Jacob, in all of Nature the weaker dwindle in number, and the strong flourish. There is some kind of selection of the strongest, that goes on all the time."

"But that cannot be so," said Thaxton. "There has not been enough time since the world began, for the process you describe to significantly alter the balance of the natural proportions of animals. According to Bishop Ussher, this world began only four thousand and four years before the birth of Our Lord."

Darwin sighed. "Aye, I'm familiar with the bishop's theory. But if he'd ever lifted his head for a moment, and looked at Nature, he'd have realized that he was talking through his episcopal hat. Why, man, you have only to go and look at the waterfall at High Force, not thirty miles from here, and you will realize that it must have taken tens of thousands of years, at the very least, to carve its course through the rock. The earth we live on is old—despite the good bishop's pronouncement."

Anna struggled to her feet and went over to look out of the window. It was still foggy and bleak, and the fell was barely visible through the mist. "So they are humans, out there," she said. "I hope, then, that they have some happiness in life, living in the cold and the dark."

"I think they do," said Darwin. "They were dancing when first we saw them, and they did not appear unhappy. And they do come out, at night, when the fell is shrouded in mist—to steal a few sheep of yours, I'm afraid. They always return before first light. They fear the aggressive instincts of the rest of us, in the world outside."

"What should we do about them?" asked Anna.

"Leave them alone, to live their own lives," replied Darwin. "I already made that promise to the red fiend, when we began to exchange medical information. He wanted an assurance from us that we would not trouble them, and I gave it. In return, he gave me a treasure-house of botanical facts about the plants that grow on the high fells—if I can but remember it here, until I have opportunity to write it down." He tapped his head.

Anna returned from the window. She sat down again and sighed. "They deserve their peace," she said. "From now on, if there are lights and cries on the fell at night, I will have the sense to ignore them. If they want peace, they will have it."

* * *

"So, Erasmus, I've been away again chasing another false scent. Damn it, I wish that Thomas of Appleby were alive and here, so I could choke him. All that nonsense about the Treasure of Odirex—and we found nothing."

Pole and Darwin were sitting in the coach, warmly wrapped against the cold. Outside, a light snow was falling as they wound their way slowly down the Tees valley, heading east for the coastal plains that would take them south again to Lichfield. It was three days before Christmas, and Anna Thaxton had packed them an enormous hamper of food and drink to sustain them on their journey. Darwin had opened it, and was happily exploring the contents.

"I could have told you from the beginning," he said, "that the treasure would have to be something special to please Odirex. Ask yourself, what sort of treasure would please the King of Hate? Why was he called the King of Hate?"

"Damned if I know. All I care about is that there was nothing there. If there ever was a treasure, it must have been rifled years ago."

Darwin paused, a chicken in one hand and a Christmas pudding in the other. He looked from one to the other, unable to make up his mind.

"You're wrong, Jacob," he said. "The treasure was there. You saw it for yourself, and I had even closer contact with it. Don't you see, the fiends themselves are the Treasure of Odirex. Or rather, it is what they bear with them that is the Treasure."

"Bear with them? Sheepskins?"

"Not something you could see, Jacob. Disease. The fiends are carriers of plague. That's what Odirex discovered, when he discovered them. Don't ask me how he escaped the effects himself. That's what he used to drive away the Romans. If you look back in history, you'll find there was a big outbreak of plague in Europe, back about the year four hundred and thirty—soon after the Romans left Britain. People have assumed that it was bubonic plague, just like in the Black Death in the fourteenth century, or the Great Plague here a hundred years ago. Now, I am sure that it was not the same."

"Wait a minute, Erasmus. If the fiends carry plague, why aren't all the folk near Cross Fell dead?"

"Because we have been building up immunity, by exposure, for many hundreds of years. It is the process of selection again. People who can resist the plague can survive, the others die. I was struck down myself, but thanks to our improved natural resistance, and thanks also to the potion that the red fiend made me drink, all I had was a very bad day. If I'd been exposed for the first time, as the Romans were, I'd be dead by now."

"And why do you assert that it was not bubonic plague? Would you not be immune to that?"

"I don't know. But I became sick only a few hours after first exposure to the fiends—that is much too quick for bubonic plague."

"Aye," said Pole. "It is, and I knew that for myself if I thought about it. So Odirex used his 'treasure' against the Romans. Can you imagine the effect on them?"

"You didn't see me," said Darwin, "and I only had the merest touch of the disease. Odirex could appear with the fiends, contaminate the Roman equipment—touching it might be enough, unless personal contact were necessary. That wouldn't be too difficult to arrange, either. Then, within twelve hours, the agony and deaths would begin. Do you wonder that they called him Odii Rex, the King of Hate? Or that they so feared his treasure that they fled this part of the country completely? But by then it was too late. They took the disease with them, back into Europe."

Pole looked out at the snow, now beginning to settle on the side of the road. He shivered. "So the fiends really are fiends, after all. They may not intend to do it, but they have killed, just as much as if they were straight from Hell."

"They have indeed," said Darwin. "More surely than sword or musket, more secretly than noose or poison. And all by accident, as far as they are concerned. They must have developed their own immunity many thousands of years ago, perhaps soon after they branched off from our kind of humanity."

Jacob Pole reached into the hamper and pulled out a bottle of claret. "I'd better start work on the food and drink, too, Erasmus," he said morosely. "Otherwise you'll demolish the lot. Don't bother to pass me food. The wine will do nicely. I've had another disappointment, and I want to wash it down. Damn it, I wish that once in my lifetime—just once—I could find a treasure that didn't turn to vapor under my shovel."

He opened the bottle, settled back into the corner of the coach seat, and closed his eyes. Darwin looked at him unhappily. Jacob had saved his life in the mine, without a doubt. In return, all that Pole had received was a bitter let-down.

Darwin hunched down in his seat and thought of all that he had omitted to say, to Jacob and to the Thaxtons. In his pocket, the necklace from the female fiend seemed to burn, red-hot, like the bright red gold from which it was made. Somewhere in their explorations of the tunnels under Cross Fell, the fiends had discovered the gold mine that had so long eluded the other searchers. And it was plentiful enough, so that any fiend was free to wear as much of the heavy gold as he chose.

Darwin looked across at his friend. Jacob Pole was a sick man, and they both knew it. He had perhaps two or three more years, before the accumulated ailments from a lifetime of exploration came to take him. Now it was in Darwin's power to satisfy a life's ambition, and reveal to Jacob a true treasure trove, up there on Cross Fell. But Darwin also remembered the look in the red fiend's eyes, when he had asked for peace for his people as the price for his medical secrets. More disturbance would break that promise.

Outside the coach, the snow was falling heavier on the Tees valley. Without doubt, it would be a white Christmas. Darwin looked out at the tranquil scene, but his mind was elsewhere and he felt no peace. Jacob Pole, or the red fiend? Very soon, he knew that he would have to make a difficult decision.

* * *

Author's Exegesis: All works of fiction contain at least a few facts. Since Erasmus Darwin was a real person—and a fascinating one—it seems like a good idea to tell the reader what is true, and what was made up to help the story.

Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin, was born in 1731 and died in 1802. At the time this story takes place, he was forty-six years old and already on his way to becoming the most celebrated physician in Europe. Although Charles Darwin, as the most famous proponent of the theory of evolution, is today more famous than Erasmus, the latter is in many ways a much more interesting character. He was so accomplished, in so many fields, that it was difficult to do justice to him without making the reader think I was exaggerating. He was one of the most famous poets of his day, and two of his long poems, 'The Botanic Garden' and 'The Temple of Nature,' were best-sellers. He was a prolific inventor, with modern ideas in engineering. Many of his inventions were developed further by others, who found them sufficient to lead to fame and fortune. He founded the Lunar Society while living at Lichfield, and the list of its members reads like a catalog of the most influential literary and technological figures of the time: James Watt, Josiah Wedgewood, Matthew Boulton, Joseph Priestley, Samuel Galton, Thomas Day, John Baskerville, William Murdock, and of course Darwin himself. All these men enjoyed great fame in their day, and helped to launch the Industrial Revolution in England.

That's enough on Darwin himself. It is easy to write enough about him to make a book of its own, and that has been done several times. I recommend Desmond King-Hele's biography, Erasmus Darwin, as the best overview of Darwin's extraordinary life. Perhaps I should mention just a couple of more things. Darwin was very fat, he did stammer, and he lost his front teeth when he was young. He developed a theory of evolution, and in many people's opinion (including mine) he deserves to be regarded as the man who steered Charles Darwin to the theory that eventually appeared in The Origin Of Species.

In 1777, Darwin attended one of his patients, Milly Pole, the three-year old daughter of Colonel and Elizabeth Pole. Later, he saved Elizabeth Pole from a raging fever. When Colonel Pole died, in November, 1780, Darwin courted and married Elizabeth.

I took considerable liberties in describing the relationship between Pole and Darwin. So far as I know, they were not particular friends, and in fact Pole did not care for Darwin's interest in his wife—which had begun well before Pole's death. Nor, to my knowledge, was Colonel Pole an inveterate treasure hunter (but he might have been, so I feel no shame).

Cross Fell is real. It is the highest point of the Pennines, the range of hills that run from the English Midlands to the Scottish border. At one time, Cross Fell was called Fiends Fell, and according to legend St. Augustine drove the fiends away with a cross, and it was then re-named Cross Fell. Lead mines abound on and near Cross Fell, and have since Roman times.

The Helm is real. It is a bank of cloud that sits on or just above the summit of Cross Fell when the 'helm wind' is blowing. As a natural but puzzling meteorological phenomenon, the Helm has attracted a good deal of scientific attention. The reasons for the existence and persistence of the Helm are discussed in Manley's book, Climate and the British Scene (1952).

As for the botany, the medications used by Darwin to treat Elizabeth Pole are pretty much those available to the practitioner of eighteenth-century medicine. The plants used by the red fiend are consistent with the botany of the high fells, but so far as I know the medical value of most of them is not established.

Two other small points. Although the Thaxtons are fiction, the description of Anna fits quite well that of Anna Seward, a good friend of Darwin. Also, Dr. Warren, who treated Anna Thaxton, was a celebrated London physician who did in fact die of consumption.

Let me close by quoting Coleridge, who visited Darwin at Derby in 1796. "Derby is full of curiosities, the cotton, the silk mills, Wright, the painter, and Dr. Darwin, the everything, except the Christian. Dr. Darwin possesses, perhaps, a greater range of knowledge than any other man in Europe, and is the most inventive of philosophical men. He thinks in a new train on all subjects except religion."

Afterword.

Late in 1977, Ted White asked me to write a fantasy for Fantastic Stories.

I said, "I don't write fantasy. I don't know how to."

He said, "Try it, and if you are satisfied with it, I'll buy it."

On those terms, it was hard to say no. I showed him the first half, and it was clearly a fantasy, and he liked it. Then I brought him the whole thing, and said, "Here it is, but it isn't a fantasy."

"What is it?" said Ted.

"It's an attempt to show how a rational man, living in a time when most people's lives were largely controlled by beliefs in irrational and super-rational ideas, could see through mysteries that would baffle other people."

(Erasmus Darwin attended Cambridge University in the 1750's—he went to St. Johns College there, the same as I did. Newton had died only 25 years earlier, in 1727, and Cambridge was still overwhelmed by his genius. He had shown that the observable universe could be understood—and even predicted—using completely rational methods (see "Power Failure" earlier in this book). So Darwin, himself a supreme rationalist, received his education in a place where that view was approaching its peak. He absorbed all of it.)

"So what sort of story is it?" asked Ted. "It's really science fiction," I said. He read it. "I like it," he said, "but it's fantasy all right."

I didn't agree, but there seemed no point in arguing. The story was published, and I continued to think of it as straight science fiction. I wrote a sequel, which I also thought of as science fiction. Then two things made me re-examine my views.

First, Terry Carr wrote to me and said he would like to include "The Treasure Of Odirex" in his Best of the Year—Best Fantasy of the Year, he said. And the sequel, "The Lambeth Immortal," which had been sent off to George Scithers at Isaac Asimov's Magazine, came back as a contract—from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. George had read it, decided it was a mystery story, and sent in to AHMM, which is a companion magazine to Asimov's. It was published there in June, 1979.

Well, I still think of both stories as science fiction. But I must say I am having doubts. The third story in the series, "The Warkworth Devil," may decide it for me—as soon as I get around to writing it. I've had the plot and the characters sitting in my head for six months now. Some day soon.

THE DALMATIAN OF FAUST

Evolution never stops. It's a continuing process, going on today. Many people find this hard to believe and point out that strength, intelligence, speed, and courage now seem entirely useless. That may be true—one of the depressing things about evolution is that you can't be sure which elements dominate the selection process, here and now. And if you did know, there is absolutely nothing that you could do with the knowledge; either you have the right properties for genetic selection or you don't.

The thing that prompted this train of thought was a visit, a few minutes ago, from my business partner, Waldo. He was wallowing in new-found affluence, wearing expensive clothes and sporting—most uncharacteristically—a glamorous female on each arm. He looked over the deal I'd found, promised me in lordly tones that he would think about it, and swept out. I have this feeling that Waldo, against all logic, is being favored by evolution; for as any dinosaur will tell you, evolution does make mistakes.

Waldo's ride to fame and fortune got off to a very shaky start. He had been arrested, lumbering around the outer perimeter of Chryse City late one night. He was painted black all over and his attire consisted of dark blue briefs, an oxygen hose and mask, and a pair of thermal slippers. His general appearance made such a deep impression on the guard who spotted him that the alert for a Level Five emergency—Alien Attack—had been given. Within minutes Waldo had been whisked off to the office of Armando Faust, Governor of Chryse City.

The fact that he was being treated as a lunatic, once it became clear that he was not an alien, annoyed Waldo. He was not insane, he insisted. Far from it. He was merely carrying out one of the prescribed procedures of Doctor Straker's diet plan. That plan had cost him a thousand Mars-dollars. He pulled a thin booklet from his briefs and waved it triumphantly at Faust.

Faust was rumpled, bleary-eyed and unshaven, and he was dressed in a combination of a red-and-orange-striped sleep-suit and fireboots. His video-casts contrived an impression of a massive deep-voiced man, but that was clever staging. The voice was genuine, but Faust was short and dumpy.

"Thermodynamic Dieting, by Doctor Janus Straker," he read. "You paid a thousand dollars for this? What's the deal?" He drilled twin holes through Waldo's soul with the darkest, hottest eyes Waldo had ever seen. That hadn't come across on the video broadcasts.

"It's worth every cent," said Waldo. "It's the first real breakthrough in dieting since the sugar substitutes. Guaranteed to work if properly followed."

Faust was more impressed than I would have been. Over the past ten years I've heard the story much too often. I really thought that Waldo had been cured of his dieting mania after the last fiasco—the "Bionic Diet—Just One Capsule Does It—Based On Fundamental Biological Principles." The capsule, as Waldo found out much too late, contained live tapeworm eggs. But apparently hope springs eternal, and Waldo's dream for the sylph-like figure of his youth continued.

Faust moved his black cigar from one corner of his thin mouth to the other. "Are you telling me you have to dress up in that outfit, Burmeister, and run around the outside of the Dome as part of your diet?" His voice was harsh and full of disbelief. It took a tough nut to get to be top dog in a place like Chryse City, and Faust had the reputation of being a hard man to argue with. You looked forward to an interview with him in the same way as a round of "Twenty Questions" with Torquemada or a game of "Chicken" with Attila the Hun.

"Of course. Look," said Waldo with the awful zeal of the recent convert. "The food we eat is converted to energy inside us. Either we use up that energy, in exercise or some other way, or else it goes to produce fat. So there are just three ways to lose weight. Eat less food, exercise more, or lose the energy some other way. True?"

"Sounds plausible," said Faust cautiously. He puffed on his cigar and the reeking smoke hung like a miasma in the room, defying the city ventilation system. "But what's this 'Thermodynamic Dieting' all about?"

"It maximizes the other ways that the body can lose energy. For instance: eat all your food cold. Drink lots of iced water—it takes energy to heat it inside you up to body temperature. Take cold baths—you lose heat that way. Exercise in the coldest possible place—outside the Dome. Spray yourself black, too, because that's the most efficient way of radiating heat. And wear as few clothes as possible, to maximize the heat loss from evaporation. It's all in the book."

Faust looked at the booklet. "So you've been doing all the stuff it says in here?"

Waldo looked a little guilty. "Well, nearly all. I must admit I've skimped on the ice-water enemas."

Faust, iron man that he was, shuddered. "But why, for God's sake, in the middle of the night? It's just your good luck that the guard didn't shoot first and ask questions later."

"You lose heat more rapidly if you are radiating to a colder heat-sink," said Waldo. "Not only that," he went on, delivering the final, unanswerable point. "Do you think I'd be seen running around in this outfit in broad daylight?"

Faust looked at Waldo's ballooning form, black all over and covered with goose pimples. He shook his head. "I don't know. Somebody's crazy here, and somebody should be charged. I don't know if it should be you or the quack who wrote this book."

"Doctor Straker is a well-known and widely respected physician, and a former President of the I.M.A. Of course," Waldo added thoughtfully, "that was before his breakdown."

I think this was the point where Faust realized that further discussion would not be productive. He made up his mind.

"Burmeister, you made every official on Mars jump out of bed in the middle of the night. Including me. I could give you ten years in the superfluid plants, and everyone would applaud the decision. But I'm a kind man."

Waldo waited in horrified anticipation. Faust's favors were well-known.

"You've got a valid interplanetary passport, right? Okay. I want you to do a little job for me—and I'll pay you well for it. Not only that, I'll arrange for this whole thing tonight to be wiped off the books. There won't be one word to say that you were the cause of a General Emergency."

Waldo waited in silence. The rabbit doesn't discuss terms with the stoat.

"Maybe you know," continued Faust, "that we've been having a little problem recently with the Maintenance Services Union. Mike Maloney is a tough son-of-a-bitch." He shook his head admiringly. "There's been no real trouble yet, just a few broken heads. But it's going to get worse before we hammer out the contract, and I've tried to be ready for most things."

He removed the cigar and coughed so violently that Waldo expected to be bombarded with fragments of lung tissue.

"Last night," he went on, "one of my inside men told me that Maloney is set to try a new angle—a personal one. He's going to grab my son and put the pressure on me that way."

Waldo made suitable horrified noises.

"Oh, I don't think he'd do anything bad to him," said Faust. "He knows I'd skin him alive if he did. But he thinks it's a good way to keep me off balance. So, I've got to get Werther away from here. I decided to send him to see the family, back on Earth—he's never been there. Problem is, he's only ten and I've got to have somebody look after him on the way. I need somebody that Maloney's bunch wouldn't recognize. I'd been stuck on that—until you came along. Ten thousand dollars for Werther's safe passage to Earth, and no follow-up from tonight's little episode. Are you on?"

Waldo, despite his habit of rushing into dietary insanities, is naturally cautious. He revolved the situation in his mind and it seemed very clear. A pleasant vacation trip to Earth and a handsome fee, versus ten years in the horrors of the superfluid factories—if he lived that long. He didn't really like children, but that was a detail. He nodded.

"When do we leave?"

"Tonight. Tickets are ready at the spaceport. Every hour's delay makes it harder to get away without Maloney knowing. Go and shower, grab your stuff, and be back here in fifteen minutes. I'll get Werther."

The child who was with Armando Faust when Waldo returned was everything that Faust himself was not. Blue-eyed, fair-haired, sweet-faced, and cherubic. Waldo hoped for the sake of family harmony that Werther resembled his mother. He was carrying a hand computer, one of the billion-byte models, and he smiled shyly at Waldo.

"This is Werther," said Faust with the fatuous expression of the proud parent. "You'll be seeing a lot of each other for the next month, so you need to get to know each other."

Waldo looked at Werther, still quietly playing with his hand computer. "Pleased to meet you, my boy," he said cordially.

Werther completed his calculation and spoke for the first time. His voice was a clear, musical treble. "Estimating your height as 1.80 meters and your age as thirty-four," he said, "I calculate that you are approximately forty kilos overweight. Your life expectancy should therefore be reduced by 9.2 years, the probability that you will develop circulatory problems and flat feet is increased by 38%, and you should become totally impotent at the age of forty-nine."

Waldo was struck dumb. He looked at Armando Faust and waited for a thunderbolt of stern parental discipline to descend on Werther's head. Faust merely shook his head and smiled indulgently. "It's wonderful, what he can do using that little computer. I tell you, he'll be world famous in a few more years.

"Now, Werther," he went on. "I hope you have everything ready."

Werther smiled like an angel. "I won't go without Bismarck," he said.

Faust frowned. "Now, Werther, I told you he can't go with you. Get ready, and you and Mr. Burmeister must be off."

Werther didn't move. "I won't go without Bismarck," he repeated emphatically.

Faust looked at Waldo and shrugged hopelessly. "It's no good," he said. "You heard him. He won't go without Bismarck. You'll have to look after both of them."

Once upon a time Waldo had received a good general education. He had a sudden vision of an interplanetary flight from Mars to Earth, accompanying Werther and the mummified corpse of the Iron Chancellor. Before he could ask for details, Werther had opened the inner door of the suite and called through it. "Bismarck! Come!"

Waldo was both relieved and horrified when a large dog bounded in. It began at the front as a conventional cocker spaniel, but about the middle of the chest there was a dreadful swirl of miscegenation and the rear half, white with black spots, was a definite Dalmatian.

Bismarck, unaware of his strange appearance, wagged a long, fluffy tail cheerfully. He ran to Waldo and sniffed with interest at his trouser legs.

"He's just learning your smell," said Werther. "Once he's got it, he'll never forget it. No! Bad dog!" he added as Bismarck showed signs of labeling Waldo's trouser leg in a more personal manner.

"Werther bred him himself," said Faust proudly. "He picked the genetic patterns and gave them to Muttants, Limited, and they did the mutated cross. Bismarck's bred for intelligence and tracking. Werther wants him to be a super-bloodhound."

Waldo was beginning to foresee problems. Escorting a docile ten-year-old from Chryse City to Earth was one thing. Escorting a child prodigy, clearly spoiled beyond all reason, along with his doubtfully housebroken dog, was another. The sooner it was over with, the better. Waldo hadn't eaten for many hours, and the foul tobacco-laden air was getting to him. He was suddenly very keen to get outside Faust's rooms and on the way. He stood up.

"Remember," said Faust. "Keep your eyes open for Maloney's men. You won't be really safe until you're on the ship. Don't share an airbus with anybody, and keep with a crowd of people whenever you can. You'll get your fee when I hear that you've reached Earth."

He said his fond farewell to Werther. Waldo and Bismarck each received a casual nod, and they walked along the corridor that would take them to the elevator.

It arrived empty. They entered, and Waldo spoke the level they wanted. As he did so, Bismarck growled. The elevator, confused by the twin inputs, did not move. Bismarck growled again and Waldo looked at him in annoyance.

"Can't you keep him quiet, Werther?" he started to say when he noticed the white vapor emerging from the low ventilator grille. It dawned on him that Mike Maloney, head of the Maintenance Services Union, was responsible among other things for the Chryse City elevator system. But by then it was too late.

* * *

In some places Waldo's account of subsequent events fails to match other versions. He says his captors held him for three days without food, and undeniably he missed several meals. But I believe that was mainly his own fault—you can judge for yourself.

He was knocked out by the narcogas for a couple of hours, at most. He awoke in a locked room, somewhere in Chryse City. It would be inappropriate to say that it was an unfamiliar room, since thanks to the unit construction methods used, every room looks the same as any other. However, he had no idea just where he was.

The room contained only a bed, chair, table, and the usual sanitary facilities. There were two doors, both locked. Waldo rattled them a bit, more or less hopelessly, and was startled when he heard Werther's impatient voice behind one of them.

"Burmeister, you're awake at last," it said. "Now we can all get out of here."

"How did you know it was me in here?" said Waldo in surprise, stooping to set his ear to the door.

"Bismarck can smell you through the door. Look, this shouldn't be too hard. There are layout diagrams of the city in every table drawer. You know, standard requirement for blow-out precautions. Get yours out and I'll tell you what we do."

"But it's no use—we don't know where we are," said Waldo.

"True. But I've got my computer here with me. It's like the Traveling Salesman problem, remember? I've got the program—"

Waldo straightened and turned quickly as the other door of his room was thrown open. Two men in the anonymous gray uniform of Maintenance Services stood there.

"Thought so," said the taller of the two. "We'll have to separate them. I didn't expect there'd be anybody else picked up with young Faust."

"We'd better be careful," replied his companion. "Maloney'll skin us both if Faust Junior gets hurt. He's the trump bargaining card."

"He is, but that doesn't apply to Fatso here," the tall man replied. He glared at Waldo. "We'd better get him to a different room, where they can't talk to each other. Come on, you, quietly if you want to stay comfortable." He lifted the electric prod he was carrying and pointed outside.

Waldo turned quickly back to the locked door. "Don't panic, now, Werther," he said in rapid, high-pitched tones. "I'll think of something. I'll get us out of here, just you relax. Oof!" he concluded, as the electric prod was applied briefly but effectively to the seat of his trousers. "All right, I'm going. You didn't need to do that, you barbarian."

Waldo was shepherded out and locked in another room, out of earshot of Werther.

"Behave well," said his captors, "and maybe we'll bring you something to eat later in the day. If you're noisy, you'd better be ready to live off your fat."

They didn't know it, but they had made a big mistake. Few things in life can rouse Waldo to heights of physical bravery and action, but threat of starvation is one of them. As he has occasionally remarked to me when in a philosophical mood—usually after a vast dinner, where he has demolished enough for three people—"hunger sharpens the brain."

The furnishings of the new room were identical with the old one. Waldo remembered Werther's remark and went to the table drawer. A book of schematics there showed the main Chryse City life-support systems in all their monstrous complexity. Air, water, sanitation, and power were all drawn out in complete detail, showing the linkage of every apartment to the main lines and the feeder systems.

Waldo reviewed the options—very limited ones. Power and water were delivered through narrow conduits. The air-handling system, behind the wall ventilator, had a fifty-centimeter duct. To get through that, Waldo would need to be extruded, like toothpaste from a tube. That left the sewage system as the only alternative. It had a one-meter duct to begin with, but it merged to a bigger line underneath the apartments, and then varied in size again as it approached the central disposal system.

Waldo, thanks to an unfortunate episode earlier in his career, was no stranger to sewage. Grimly he took the layout diagram and tried to plot the ways through the maze of pipes.

There were two problems. Since he didn't know where he was, any starting point for his analysis seemed equally valid; and since Maloney's men might be anywhere, it wouldn't do to simply escape—he would have to surface in a safe place, preferably very close to Faust's private suite.

He had to make some pretty wild guesses about where he was and where he would like to go. Then he settled down with notebook and pencil to a long session of route planning. There was inevitably a lot of trial and error involved. After five hours of grinding detail, drawing in paths and noting routes in terms of turns and numbers of ducts, and finally making a detailed list in his notebook of all the necessary information, Waldo had done all that he could. He made the final notation and put the book in his pocket.

A square meal, brought by his captors at that moment, might have changed everything. But they seemed to have forgotten him and he resolved to move ahead with his plans.

The toilet assembly lifted out, after a mighty struggle, and revealed a dark, deep drop to the duct below. Waldo carefully lowered the flashlight, provided in the table drawer for possible power failures, to the bottom of the hole. From the length of bed-sheet strip he had used, he estimated that it would be a drop of a meter or less if he lowered himself at arm's length. He began to insert himself into the hole, but it was a much tighter fit than it looked—Doctor Straker's Thermodynamic Diet had done less for Waldo than he had hoped. He stood up, removed his jacket and squeezed himself again into the hole. After hanging for a second, he dropped to the duct, retaining his balance with difficulty, then carefully retrieved the flashlight.

The procedure from that point on was simple but tedious: follow the route listings and path designators that he had copied into the notebook, using the flashlight for illumination; get to the central sewer conduit and exit from there, using the main maintenance catwalks and entrances; locate the nearest videophone, call Armando Faust, person-to-person, and tell him that Werther had been kidnapped; give as much information as possible on the place where he was being held prisoner; and then meet Faust and assist in the search for Werther.

There was one slight problem. The information on the routes was all recorded in the notebook; the notebook was in Waldo's jacket pocket; and Waldo's jacket was still in the room, lying where Waldo had placed it after deciding that the sewer entrance would be a tight fit. Apart from that, everything was fine.

Oh, yes, one other thing. The recent work of Maintenance Services had been well below par. The flashlight, when Waldo switched it on, gave forth the feeblest glimmer of exhausted batteries, like the mating of tired glow-worms.

Waldo stood in the slippery, sloping duct and looked at the lighted hole into the room above him. It was not more than a meter above his outstretched hands, and that should have been no problem at all under two-fifths Earth gravity. Unfortunately, the space was cramped, the footing treacherous, and Waldo had never been much of a one for leaping. After a few desperate and unsuccessful attempts, he felt that the lighted opening above him was as remote and inaccessible as Alpha Centauri.

Since he could not go back, he had to press on, trusting to luck and memory alone to guide him successfully through the labyrinthine ways of the Chryse City sewage system. He set off bravely through the darkness, making his choice of turns and branches on a completely random basis. In terms of probability of success, he was like a solitary chimp deposited at a typewriter and told to write the works of Shakespeare.

The dying flashlight was useless. After a few minutes Waldo threw it into the darkness and sent a stream of oaths after it. He ploughed on. Sometimes he would be in a tall, wide pipe that felt completely dry under foot. Sometimes he would be banging his head on the low ceiling of the duct and splashing ankle-deep in what he hoped was water. Where a choice existed, he tried to head 'downhill,' hoping to reach one of the central cloacas—all of them had maintenance lighting and access to the outside corridors.

Waldo struggled gamely on, through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. As he said, the alternative to struggling on was not good; it was hardly a situation where one could choose to lie down and rest. One fact became increasingly clear: sewers, at least modern sewers, are not cold. The stereotype of a chill, clammy atmosphere doesn't apply when peopie have ample energy for heating. Waldo says that the Chryse City sewers are rather like the medium setting of a sauna. After three or four hours of rambling he was on his last legs and felt as limp as a beached jellyfish.

I know Waldo very well. We've been friends and partners since law school. So I believe him when he says that he had begun to despair of ever reaching any exit. He kept thinking of the limerick about the young man named Clyde, who fell down a sewer and died. And when, at last, he came to an intersection and saw a faint light, far off to his left, he could hardly believe it. He staggered toward it, along a narrowing duct. He went down on hands and knees, then at full stretch, and moved forward.

Waldo had reached one of the central settling-pond areas, into which many ducts deliver their contents. Unfortunately, he had found one that in its final stages was less than half a meter in diameter. He crawled on, finding the fit tighter and tighter, and finally, about three meters from the end, he stuck. No amount of pushing and straining would move him forward another millimeter. Nor, as he soon discovered, would it move him a millimeter backward.

He was stuck. He lay there, feeling that safety and comfort were just a few meters away.

He was wrong, as it happens. The duct emerged almost ten meters above the surface of the settling-pond, and directly below the point of emergence was a sharp metal filter. If Waldo had been able to get to the end of the duct and drop from it, he would have been cut to ribbons. His problem was just a bit worse than he realized.

As far as I can tell, Waldo was actually stuck in that pipe for at most eight hours. I didn't argue with him when he says that subjectively it seemed five or six days. After the first couple of hours, he became aware of a new factor. Something was pushing him firmly, and steadily, from behind; delicately, all over his nether regions.

After a few puzzled minutes it dawned on him that he was experiencing the much-vaunted computerized sewer-maintenance system. When a blockage occurs in the Chryse City sewers, two things happen. The air pressure is steadily increased, in an attempt to blow the obstruction free, and after a threshold value is reached, the presence of the blockage is reported on the central services' control panel. To the control computer, Waldo was just another piece of waste material, an aggregate of garbage blocking a vital feed line. The pressure rose steadily.

It continued to rise. Waldo, in the heat, sweated profusely.

After long hours, the critical point was reached where tangential forces exceeded static friction. Waldo, like a well-greased bullet, was propelled suddenly along the duct with increasing speed and then fired out into space, over the settling-pond. He hung poised for a moment in mid-air, well clear of the metal filter, then dropped from the zenith like a falling star.

He struck the settling-pond surface flat. The resulting tsunami was enough to inundate the two service men arriving at that moment to investigate the blockage.

They dredged him out. The three of them staggered back to the access corridor. No one spoke, although there was a good deal of swearing, coughing, spluttering, and spitting. Just when Waldo was wondering how he could get loose of his companions and find a videophone to call Faust, they came to a door off the main corridor and one of the maintenance men threw it open.

"The boy was right," he said through the open door. "That's what the blockage was. Here he is, and you're welcome to him."

They pushed Waldo through the door and departed for the showers. Sitting at a long table inside the room were Faust and Werther, with Bismarck lolling at their feet. Faust and Waldo looked at each other in disbelief. Finally, Bismarck stood up, walked over to Waldo and sniffed at him inquiringly. He recoiled slightly, then began to wag his tail, tentatively. He looked like an art critic, discerning the faint outline of an Old Master's work beneath the more recent daubing of a lesser painter.

"It is," said Faust. "It really is Burmeister. You were right, Werther. No," he added hastily as Waldo began to approach the table. "You sit down over there, by the door. I know you don't like the cigar smoke."

Waldo collapsed into a chair. He had so many questions he didn't know where to start. How had Werther got free? Why were the Maintenance Services people acting friendly to Faust when they were locked in contract combat? How long was it since he had been captured? He needed explanations, but most of all he needed rest.

Werther's childish treble intruded on his thoughts. "You should have left the escape to me," he said reprovingly. "You are not intellectually equipped for such activity. Also, you had no computer with you."

"Computer? What's a computer got to do with it?" asked Waldo feebly. That crack about his intellectual capacity, like the earlier one about impotence, rankled.

"Everything. Without a means of systematic calculation, the chance of finding your way through the City utilities' system is almost zero. Even Bismarck and I had to make use of additional factors to arrive home at our suites. Do you realize that the 18,000 nodes of the utility system imply more than ten to the sixty-sixth possible path choices on a trial-and-error basis?"

Waldo didn't know. Furthermore, he didn't care. He closed his eyes wearily. He hadn't gone through days of anguish, escaping through the sewer system, to be lectured by an underage runt. Then a thought struck him and he opened his eyes again.

"You mean you were in the sewers too? I never saw you."

"Of course we weren't. What a revolting idea! We went through the air-handling system. I used the general schematic to set up the route choice as a nonlinear programming problem."

Waldo closed his eyes again. This promised to be even worse.

"I set as the objective function the path length to the central air tunnel," went on Werther, "where all the ducts merge. Then I minimized that, using a semi-heuristic algorithm that I developed last year for the Traveling Salesman problem. It was far from trivial. My hand computer took almost three hours to compute an optimal strategy. When I had it, I removed the air grille and Bismarck and I set off."

Faust was shaking his head in admiration. "Can you beat that, Burmeister," he said. "Figuring out the best path on his computer, out of ten-to-the-umpty choices. That isn't the best part, either. Go on, Werther, tell him the rest."

Werther regarded his father sternly. "I would appreciate it, Father, if you would refrain from interrupting me," he said.

Faust looked abashed. Waldo couldn't understand how this man, who ate tough guys for breakfast, could be so subservient to a ten-year-old. It increased Waldo's own distrust for small children—especially smart-ass ones.

"At the point where all the ducts merged," continued Werther, "I had to resort to a different strategy. When a problem is difficult, it is necessary to deploy all available resources. I led Bismarck to each of the main air branches feeding into the central tunnel, saying 'Home' to him at each one. At the fourteenth branch he began to wag his tail. As I had surmised, the characteristic aroma of Father's cigars was strong enough to carry through to the central tunnel."

"Specially made for me in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," said Faust. He held up his lighted cigar. "Each one wrapped from a single leaf of high-quality Scranton tobacco."

Yes, thought Waldo, and hand-rolled against a steelworker's thigh, from the smell of them. Fortunately, he was too tired to speak. He was developing a grudging respect for Werther. The lad had a great future ahead of him, unless some public benefactor exterminated him along the way.

"Father, I told you once," said Werther in admonishing tones. "Please do not interrupt again. As I was saying, we took the main branch that Bismarck selected and followed the same procedure at each succeeding fork. Bismarck led us infallibly to the apartment, where I attracted Father's attention and we were able to enter through the air grille."

Something still didn't make sense to Waldo. "But how were you able to obtain assistance from the maintenance people to get me out?" he said. "I thought they were your enemies."

"Werther took care of that, too," said Faust. "You see, on the way back here. . ."

He subsided under a stern look from Werther.

"To answer your question," said the latter. "On the way to the central air tunnel we passed a number of other apartments and could both see and hear through their air grilles. In one of them we chanced to observe Mr. Maloney. He was with a lady, and they were engaging in certain activities that apparently appeal to adults. Since my computer also has a recording mode, it occurred to me after a few minutes to make a video and sound recording through the mesh of the grille. It is not of any great quality, but quite adequate.

"Now, you may explain the rest, Father," he said graciously to Faust.

"Well, the lady with Mike Maloney—and I don't know why I use the word lady, considering some of the things she was doing—happens to be a special close friend of Jake Gregg, head of the Transport Union. Jake happens to be a pretty headstrong guy. So I called Mike, he came over here, and we played the tape. Then we had a really nice, friendly chat, and he signed the new contract we wanted, on the spot. Mike assured me that he is really a good friend of mine, and he apologized for what his men had done, kidnapping you and Werther. Strictly against his orders, he said. He called over there to have you released, and they told him you'd escaped into the sewer system. They were reporting a pressure rise there, too. Werther figured out what was happening in two seconds, and we came over here to pick you up."

"Don't forget to tell him about the fee, Father," said Werther.

"Oh, yes. I said you had to get Werther to Earth to get your fee. That's about one hundred million kilometers, so you only made it a billionth of the way. But Werther points out that the kidnapping settled the crisis, and he didn't want to go to Earth anyway. So he told me to—I mean, I'm going to pay you half the fee, for your efforts. What do you think of that, Burmeister? Burmeister? Damn it, Werther, I believe he's fallen asleep."

Indeed he had. While Faust had been speaking, Waldo had at last managed to remove several bits of twisted metal, broken ceramics and unrecognizable glop from inside his shirt and trousers. He had collected them during his visit to the settling-pond, and the discomfort they caused had been the only thing keeping him awake. He was aware of certain mammoth stirrings and churnings deep inside him as his stomach fought a great battle with his ingestions from the settling-pond, but even that couldn't stop his eyes closing. Something attempted, something done, has earned the night's repose, he thought. He slept.

* * *

It took Waldo a while to recover from his ordeal, including the case of dysentery he picked up somehow on his trip through the sewers. While he was recuperating, he had a constant stream of visitors. The whole episode, involving boy, dog, and man in their complex trips through the utility system of Chryse City, caught the public fancy. In particular, Waldo's spectacular exit from the last duct attracted all the headlines. "Human cork survives tunnel ordeal," said one; "Human cannonball makes 'soft landing' after death-defying flight," proclaimed another. Waldo was famous.

It didn't take the newsmen long to decide they would rather deal with Waldo than Werther, who treated them all like idiots and was enraged by any reporting errors.

Waldo lay there at his ease while his bank balance, already fat from Faust's fee, swelled hourly as he conducted paid interviews with all forms of media. He sold the book rights for a princely sum, and now there is talk of making a holo-movie based on the episode.

Do you see what I mean about evolution? Waldo exhibited none of the usual survival traits. Oh, well, perhaps a certain blind persistence. But as usual, he landed on his feet. He always does. It convinces me that the main genetic selection criterion these days is not skill, intelligence, or any of the usual virtues. It's entertainment value. Have that, and everything else will come to you.

Waldo has so much money now, he's hesitating to go ahead with the deal I set up for him. By the time he recovered from his experience, the lack of food after he was kidnapped, his strenuous exercises in the Turkish-bath atmosphere of the sewer, plus the dysentery he developed there, had all produced a big effect. I contacted Doctor Straker and made a suggestion. He was most enthusiastic.

The paper I have here says, "In the ten-day period after I began Doctor Straker's Thermodynamic Diet plan, I testify that I lost a total of eleven kilos in body mass. Signed, Waldo Burmeister."

It's a perfectly true statement. All he has to do is sign it and we'll both be considerably richer. He seems strangely reluctant. He hasn't said so, but I suspect that he doesn't want to have anything more to do with Thermodynamic Dieting.

Afterword.

I have never had a neutral reaction to this story. Readers either love it or loathe it. I think it depends on whether you are male or female, whether you have an English or an American sense of humo(u)r, and how well you like your Keats and Milton quotations embedded in a sewage-system setting.

I promised in the Introduction to this collection to tell you what I was trying to do in each story, but let this be an exception. It is supposed to be amusing rather than profound, and beyond that a deep analysis is pointless. "Others abide our question, thou art free" applies very well to my friend Waldo Burmeister. And, as another well-known writer of science fiction and humor put it a long time ago, the rest is silence.

THE END

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

WHAT SONG THE SIRENS SANG

FIXED PRICE WAR

MARCONI, MATTIN, MAXWELL

POWER FAILURE

KILLING VECTOR

DINSDALE DISSENTS

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT

SKYSTALK

HOW TO BUILD A BEANSTALK

TRANSITION TEAM

BOUNDED IN A NUTSHELL

THE LONG CHANCE

THE TREASURE OF ODIREX

THE DALMATIAN OF FAUST